HOMAGE 

7 OF 

EMINENT PERSONS 

TO 

THE BOOK. 

"There is but one book — THE BIBLE." 



COMPILED BY 

SAMUEL W. BAH.EY. 



How precious is the Book divine, 

By inspiration given 1 
Bright as a lamp its doctrines shine, 

To guide our souls to heaven." 



NEW YORK. 
1869. 



.33 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by 

SAMUEL W. BAILEY, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 
Southern District of New York. 



Rand, Avery, & Fryk, 

Stereotypers and Printers, 

3 CoRNHiLL, Boston. 




PEOLOGUE. 




I HEY who have truly begun to learn 
the value of the Bible need few 
incentives to study it further. 
Whoever has had a taste of honey, 
or has been cheered by genial sunlight, will 
not refuse the one for bitter and poisonous 
weeds, nor prefer the darkness and chilly 
damps of a prison to the other. But many, 
unhappily, have never gained a relish for 
the wondrous truths of the Bible, nor been 
charmed by its literary beauties. It would 
befit a philosopher to account for such lack 
of susceptibility. A kindlier service is here 
rendered. 

Wise men credit the testimony of explorers 
and discoverers, as they are believed to be 



4 PROLOGUE. 

sagacious, upright, and truthful. An impos- 
ing array of witnesses, renowned for wisdom 
and genius, for patriotism and philanthropy, 
here testify to the same point, — a point to 
which they were qualified to speak. The 
statesman and the jurist, the poet and the ora- 
tor, the philosopher, moralist, and the divine, 
successively assert and justify the claims of 
the Sacred Oracles to be reverently and faith- 
fully studied. From such a number and va- 
riety of authors, a large volume of testimony 
like this might be gathered ; but it is here 
deemed unwise to overtask the patience of 
the most moderate reader. 

It is but frank, however, to say, that, while 
minds mature and cultivated may derive ad- 
vantage from this compilation, it is chiefly 
designed for persons whose tastes, opinions, 
and habits are still pliant and forming. And 
since the known sentiments and opinions of 
virtuous and intelligent parents rightfully 
sway their children, ought not the worth 
and wisdom of those distinguished represen- 
tatives of different periods and countries to 
clothe their earnest words, here recorded, 
with more than parental authority? Be it 
that the word is unpleasing and unpopular : 



PKOLOGUE. 5 

there is still that authorily pertaining to in- 
tegrity of character, to soundness of judg- 
ment, to largeness of observation and expe- 
rience, and to arguments brief, but terse and 
forcible, which none may wisely disregard. 

If this little book shall beget an increased 
interest in the Bible, and a greater practical 
reverence for its teachings ; if it shall prevail 
to silence cavillers, or to fortify its readers 
against their malign sophistries and quibbles; 
and if it shall prove to be an antidote, how- 
ever feeble, to the present excessive taste 
for ivorks of fiction, by fostering an opposite 
one for loJiolesome and vital truths, — it will 
achieve ends both needful and benign. 




CONTENTS. 



PART L 

WORDS MISCELLANEOUS XK 

PART IL 

WORDS APOLOGETIC AND EVIDENTIAL . 73 

PART III. 

WORDS CLAIMING THE BIBLE AS A 

SCHOOI^BOOK ...... 105 

(7) 



INDEX. 



PAas. 

Adams, John 12 

Adams, John Quincy 16 

Addison, Joseph 93 

Alexander, James W 128 

Ambrose, Saint 39 

Angus, Joseph 79 

Bacon, Francis 83 

Barnes, Albert 82 

Bcattie, James 99 

Beecher, Henry Ward 11, 47 

Bonaparte, Napoleon 95 

Boyle, Robert 32 

Brougham, Henry 122 

Buuson, C. K. J 50 

Burke, Edmund 18 

Burleigh, W. H 126 

Butler, Benjamin F 61 

Butler, Joseph 88 

Carlyle, Thomas 38 

Cass, Lewis 57 

Cecil, Richard 25 

Chanuiug, William Ellery 78 

Cheever, George B 120 

Chillingworth, William 59 

Chrysostom, Saint 28 

Coleridge, S. T 81 

Cousin, Victor 118 

Cowley, Abraham 34 

Dana, Richard H 80 

Diderot, Denis 66 

Dryden, John 102 

8 



INDEX. 



Edwards, 29 

Eu^ubius 101 

Everett, Edward 50 

Faucett, John 128 

Eiavel, John 21 

Fosti-r, John 29 

Fuller, Thomas 90 

Gausseu, Prof. 24 

GilHUan, George 41 

Goethe, J. W. V 15, 84, 102 

Greenleaf, Simon 55 

Gregory, The Great 25 

Grimk^, Thomas S 127 

Grotius, Hugo 92 

Guizot, F. P. G 75 

Hale, Matthew 19 

Hall, Robert 35 

Hamilton, James 22, 36 

Hatton, Christopher 48 

Hajes, Samuel 32 

Hemaiis, Felicia 116 

Hornblower, Joseph C 54 

Home, George 26 

Jefferson, Thomas 67 

Jewel, John 94 

Jones, William 42 

Kent, James 23 

Kepler, Johann 84 

Knapp, George Christian 118 

Locke, John 27,53,108 

Luther, Martin 108 

Marsh, George P 61 

Macduff, J. A 98 

Massillon 31 

Maury, M.F 85 

McLean, John 56 

Mihnan, Henry Hartly 12 

Milton, John 46 

Mitchell, O.M 43 

Newton, Isaac 76 

Newton, John 63 

Owen, John 91 

Oxenstierna, Axel ........•• 62 



10 INDEX. 



Parker, Theodore 65 

Payson, Edward 14 

Peel, Robert 119 

Pollok, Robert 46 

Pope, Alexander 35 

Princeton Review 123 

Raumer, Karl Von 124 

Rogers, Henry 77 

Rousseau, Jean Jacques 68 

Rush, Benjamin 110 

Salmasius, Claudius 48 

Scott, Walter 40,49,90 

Seelye, J. H . 121 

Selden, John 14 

Seward, William H 54 

Silliman, Benjamin 86 

Simpson, D 81 

Smith, John Cotton 125 

Southard, Samuel L. 58 

Spring, G-ardiner 97 

Steele, Anne 40 

Story, Joseph 117 

Stowe, Calvin E , . . 80 

Tholuck, F. A. G 89 

Trench, R. Chevenix 82 

Tyndal, William 59 

Vaughan, Henry 15 

Victoria, Queen 49 

Washington, Q-eorge 52 

Watts, Isaac 109 

Wavland, Francis 100 

Webster, Daniel 63, 124 

Whately, Richard 87 

Wilberforce, William 19 

Wilson, John 20 




PART I. 

— 1«^ — ■ 

HOMAGE OF EMINENT PERSONS 

IN 

WORDS MISCELLANEOUS. 



By Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. 

Dispense with the Bible ? 

MANY will say, ^^ I can find God without 
the help of the Bible or church or 
minister." Very well. Do so if you can. 
The ferry company would feel no jealousy 
of a man who should prefer to swim to New 
York. Let him do so if he is able, and we 
will talk about it on the other shore ; but, 
probably, trying to swim would be the thing 
that would bring him quickest to the boat. 
So God would have no jealousy of a man's 

going to heaven without the aid of the Bible 

11 



12 tlOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

or church or minister ; but let him try to do 
so, and it will be the surest way to bring him 
back to them for assistance. 

* Be thou my star in reason's night ; 
Be thou my rock in danger's fright ; 
Be thou my guide mid passion's way ; 
My moon by night, my sun by day." 

Dean Milman to his Bible. 



II. 

By Hon. John Adams, second President of 
the United States. — 1735-1826. 

The Bible the best of Books* 

I HAVE examined all, as well as my narrow 
sphere, my straitened means, and my busy 
life, would allow me ; and the result is, that 
the Bible is the best book in the world. It 
contains more of my little philosophy than all 
the libraries I have seen ; and such parts of 
it as I cannot reconcile to my little philosophy, 
I postpone for future investigation. 

* From a Letter to Thomas Jefferson, dated December, 1813. 



WORDS MISCELLANEOUS. 13 

From his Diary. 

Suppose a nation in some distant region 
should take the Bible for their only law-book, 
and every member should regulate his con- 
duct by the precepts there exhibited. Every 
member would be obliged, in conscience, to 
temperance and frugality and industry, to 
justice and kindness and charity towards his 
fellow-men, and to piety, love, and reverence 
towards Almighty God. In this common- 
wealth, no man would impair his health by 
gluttony, drunkenness, or lust : no man would 
sacrifice his most precious time to cards, or 
any other trifling or mean amusement; no 
man would steal or lie, or in any way defraud 
his neighbor, but would live in peace and 
good will with all men ; no man would blas- 
pheme his Maker, or profane his worship ; but 
a rational and manly, a sincere and unaffected, 
piety and devotion would reign in all hearts. 



14 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

III. 

By John Selden, the Oriental Scholar. — 

1 584-1654. 

The Same. 

THOUGH I have been very laborious in 
my literary inquiries, and have pos- 
sessed myself of a great number of valuable 
books and manuscripts upon all ancient sub- 
jects, yet I can rest the happiness of my soul 
on none of them except the Holy Scriptures. 

IV. 

By Rev. Edward Payson, D.D. — 1783- 
1827. 

The Best Companionships in the Bible. 

BY opening this volume we may at any 
time walk in the garden of Eden 
with Adam, sit in the ark with Noah, share 
the hospitality or witness the faith of 
Abraham, ascend the mount of God with 
Moses, unite in the secret devotions of David, 
or listen to the eloquent and impassioned 
address of Paul. Nay, more : we may here 
converse with Him who spake as never man 
spake, participate with the just made perfect 



WORDS MISCELLANEOUS. 15 

in the employment and happiness of heaven, 
and enjoy sweet communion with the Father 
of our spirits through his Son Jesus Christ. 
Such is the society to which the Scriptures 
introduce us, such the examples which they 
present to our imitation. 

V. 

By J. W. V. Goethe, the Poet.— 1740- 

1832. 

The Bible as a Guide. 

IT is a belief in the Bible, the fruits of deep 
meditation, which has served me as the 
guide of my moral and literary life. I have 
found it a capital safely invested, and richly 
productive of interest. 

VI. 

By Henry Vaughan, the Poet. — 1621-1695. 

OBOOK ! life's guard ! 
Thou wert the first put in my hand, 
When yet I could not understand ; 
And daily didst my young eyes lead 
To letters, till I learnt to read. 



16 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

But as rash youths, when once grown strong, 

Flee from their nurses to the throng, 

Where they new consorts choose, and stick 

To those till either hurt or sick ; 

So, with that first light gained from thee, 

Ran I in chase of vanity ; 

Cried '^ dross " for gold ; and never thought 

My first cheap book had all I sought. 

VII. 

By Hon. John Quincy Adams to a Literary 
Society of Young Men.* — 1767-1848. 

Advice as to a Course of General Reading. 

ri'^HE first and almost the only book deserv- 
-■- ing universal attention is the Bible ; and, 
in recommending that, I fear that some of you 
will think I am performing a superfluous, and 
others a very unnecessary ofiice : yet such is 
my deliberate opinion. The Bible is the book 
of all others, to be read at all ages, and in all 
conditions of human life ; not to be read once 

* From a letter addressed by Hon. John Quincy Adams to a 
literary society of young men in Baltimore, who had sought 
his advice as to a course of general reading. It is dated 
" Washington, June 22, 1838." 



WORDS MISCELLANEOUS. 17 

or twice or thrice through, and then laid 
aside, but to be read in small portions of one 
or two chapters every day, and never to be in- 
termitted unless by some overruling necessity. 
1 speak as a man of the world to men of the 
world ; and I say to you. Search the Scrip- 
tures I If ever you tire of them in seeking a 
rule of faith and a standard of morals, search 
them as records of history. The Bible con- 
tains the only authentic introduction to the 
history of the world. It is a book which 
neither the most ignorant and weakest, nor the 
most learned and intelligent mind can read 
without improvement. 

Advice to his Son. 

For pathos of narrative ; for the selections 
of incidents that go directly to the heart ; for 
the picturesque of character and manner; 
the selection of circumstances that mark the 
individuality of persons ; for copiousness, 
grandeur, and sublimity of imagery ; for un- 
answerable cogency and closeness of reason- 
ing ; and for irresistible force of persuasion, — 
no book in the world deserves to be so unceas- 
ingly studied, and so profoundly meditated 
upon, as the Bible. 



18 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

I advise you, my son, in whatever you read, 
and most of all in reading the Bible, always 
to read it with reference to some particular 
train of observation or reflection. In these 
letters, I have suggested to you four general 
ones. Considering the Scriptures as divine 
revelations ; as historic records ; as contain- 
ing a system of morals ; and as literary com- 
positions,— I have myself, for many years, 
made it a practice to read through the Bible 
once every year. My custom is to read four 
or five chapters every morning, immediately 
after rising from my bed. It employs about 
an hour of my time, and seems to be the most 
suitable manner of beginning the day 



VIII. 

By Edmund Burke. — i730-i797- 

The Bible a Source of Happiness. 

I HAVE been educated as a Protestant of the 
Church of England, by a dissenter , who was 
an honor to his sect, though that sect was con- 
sidered one of the purest. Under his eye, I 
have read the Bible morning, noon, and night, 
and have ever since been the happier and 
better man for such reading. 



WORDS MISCELLANEOUS. 19 

IX. 

By Sir Matthew Hale, Chief Justice of 
England. — Born 1609; died 1676. 

Advice to his Children. 

EVERY morning, read seriously and rever- 
ently a portion of the Holy Scriptures, 
and acquaint yourselves with the history and 
doctrine thereof. It is a book full of light and 
wisdom, will make you wise to eternal life, 
and furnish you with directions and principles 
to guide and order your life safely and pru- 
dently. There is no book like the Bible for 
excellent learning, wisdom, and use. 



X. 

Dying words of William Wilberforce. — 

1759-1833- 

The Bible should be first and chiefly read. 

READ the Bible, read the Bible ! Let no 
religious book take its place. Through 
all my perplexities and distresses, I seldom 
read any other book, and I as rarely felt the 
want of any other. It has been my hourly 
study ; and all my knowledge of the doc- 



20 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

trines, and all my acquaintance with the ex- 
perience and realities of religion, have been 
chiefly derived from the Bible. I think that 
rehgious people do not read the Bible enough. 
Books about religion may be useful ; but they 
will not do instead of the simple truth of the 
Bible. 

XI. 

By John Wilson ("Christopher North"), 
Late Professor of Moral Philosophy in the 
University of Edinburgh. — 17^S-'^^S4' 
Benefits of Early Familiarity with the Bible. 

HE who is so familiar with his Bible, that 
each chapter, open it where he will, 
teems with household words, may draw thence 
the theme of many a pleasant and pathetic 
song. For is not all human nature and all 
human life shadowed forth in those pages ? 
But the heart, to sing well from the Bible, must 
be imbued with rehgious feehngs, as a flower 
is alternately with dew and sunshine. The 
study of The Book must have begun in the 
simplicity of childhood, when it was felt to be 
indeed divine, and carried on through all 
those silent intervals in which the soul of 



WORDS MISCELLANEOUS. 21 

manhood is restored, duriiig the din of hfe, 
to the purity and peace of its early being. 
The Bible to such must be a port, even as the 
sky, with its sun, moon, and stars ; its bound- 
less blue, with all its cloud-mysteries ; its 
peace deeper than the grave, because of 
realms beyond the grave ; it^ tumult louder 
than that of life, because heard altogether in 
all the elements. He who begins the study 
of the Bible late in life must, indeed, devote 
himself to it night and day, and with a hum- 
ble and contrite heart, as well as an awakened 
and soaring spirit, ere he can hope to feel 
what he understands, or to understand what 
he feels ; thoughts and feelings breathing in 
upon him, as if from a region hanging in its 
mystery between heaven and earth. 



XII. 

By Rev. John Flavel. — 1627-1691. 

Bible Teachings. 

THE Scriptures teach us the best way of 
living, the noblest luay of suffering, and 
the most comfortable way of dying. 



22 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

XIII. 

By Rev. James Hamilton. — Died 1868. 

The Bible adapted to all. 

IN His wisdom and goodness, the Most High 
has judged far better for our world ; and 
using the agency of forty authors, transfusing 
through the peculiar tastes and temperaments 
of so many individuals — and these '* men of 
like passions with ourselves " — the self-same 
truths, the Spirit of God has secured for the 
Bible universal adaptation. For the pensive, 
there is the dirge of Jeremiah and the cloud- 
shadowed drama of Job ; for the sanguine and 
hopeful, there sounds the blithe voice, and 
there beats the warm pulse, of old Galilean 
Peter ; and for the calm, the contemplative, 
the peacefully loving, there spreads, like a 
molten melody or an abysmal joy, the page 
— sunny, ecstatic, boundless — of John the 
divine. The most homely may find the mat- 
ter-of-fact, the unvarnished wisdom, and plain 
sense, which is the chosen aliment of their 
sturdy understandings, in James's blunt rea- 
sonings ; and the most heroic can ask no high- 
er standard, no loftier feats, no consecration 
more intense, no spirituality more ethereal, 



WORDS MISCELLANEOUS. 23 

than they will find in the Pauline Epistles. 
Those who love the sparkling aphorism and 
the sagacious paradox are provided with food 
convenient in the Proverbs ; and for those 
whose poetic fancy craves a banquet more 
sublime, there is the dew of Hermon and 
Bozrah's red wine, the tender freshness of 
pastoral hymns, and the purple tumult of tri- 
umphal psalms. 

XIV. 

By Chancellor James Kent. — 1763 -1847. 

The sa?ne. 

THE Bible is equally adapted to the wants 
and infirmities of every human being. 
It is the vehicle of the most awful truths, and 
which are at the same time of universal appli- 
cation, and accompanied by the most effica- 
cious sanctions. No other book ever ad- 
dressed itself so authoritatively and so patheti- 
cally to the judgment and moral sense of man- 
kind. It contains the most sublime and fearful 
displays of the attributes of that perfect 
Being who inhabiteth eternity, and pervades 
and governs the universe. It brings life and 
immortality to light, which, until the publica- 



24 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

tion of the gospel, were hidden from the 
scrutiny of ages. Its doctrines, its discover- 
ies, its code of morals, and its means of grace, 
are not only overwhelming evidence of its 
divine origin, but they confound the preten- 
sions of all other systems, by showing the 
narrow range and feeble efforts of human 
reason, even when under the sway of the 
most exalted understanding, and enlightened 
by the accumulated treasures of science and 
learning. 

XV. 

By Prof Gaussen, of Geneva. 

The same. 

AS a skilful musician, called to execute 
alone some masterpiece, puts his lips 
by turns to the mournful flute, the shepherd's 
reed, the mirthful pipe, and the war-trumpet ; 
so the Almighty God, to sound in our ears 
his eternal Word, has selected from of old the 
instruments best suited to receive succes- 
sively the breath of his Spirit. Thus we 
have, in God's great anthem of revelation, the 
sublime simplicity of John, the argumenta- 
tive, elliptical, soul-stirring energy of Paul, 
the fdrvor and solemnity of Peter, the poetic 



WORDS MISCELLANEOUS. 25 

grandeur of Isaiah, the lyric moods of David, 
the ingenuous and majestic narratives of 
Moses, the sententious and royal wisdom of 
Solomon. Yes : it was all this, — it was Peter, 
Isaiah, Matthew, John, or Moses ; but it was 
God. 

XVI. 

By Gregory the Great. — Elected Pope 1049. 

Died 1085. 

The same. 

A STREAM where alike the elephant may 
swim, and the lamb may wade. 

XVII. 

By Rev. Richard Cecil. — 1748-1810. 

The Bible a Mirror of Human Character a?id of the 
Inward Life. 

PRINCIPLE is to be distinguished from 
prejudice. The man who should en- 
deavor to weaken my belief of the truth of 
the Bible, and of the fair deductions from it 
of the leading doctrines of religion, under 
the notion of their being prejudices, should 
be regarded by me as an assassin. He stabs 
me in my deepest hopes ; he robs me of my 



26 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

solid happiness ; and be has no equivalent to 
offer. This species of evidence of the truth 
and value of Scripture is within the reach 
of all men. It is my strongest. It assures 
me, as fully as a voice could from heaven, that 
my principles are not prejudices. I see in 
the Bible my heart and the world painted to 
the life; and I see just that provision made 
which is competent to the highest ends and 
effects on this heart and this world. 

" Thy Word, a wondrous guiding star, 
On pilgrim hearts doth rise ; 
Leads to their Lord who dwell afar, 
And makes the simple wise. 
Let not its light 
E'er sink in night, 
But still in every spirit shine. 
That none may miss this light divine." 

Lyra Germanica. 

XVIII. 

By George Horne, D.D., Bishop of Norwich. 
1 730-1 792. 

Bible Trziths divinely transforming. 

THE Scriptures are wonderful, with re- 
spect to the matter which they contain, 
the manner in which they are written, and 
the effects which they produce. They con- 



WORDS MISCELLANEOUS. 27 

tain the snblimest truths, many of which are 
veiled under external ceremonies and figur- 
ative descriptions. When they are properly 
opened and enforced, they terrify and humble, 
they convert and transform, they console 
and strengthen. Who but must delight to 
study and to observe these testimonies of 
the will and the wisdom, the love and the 
power, of God most high ! While we have 
these holy writings, let us not waste our tim-e, 
misemploy our thoughts, and prostitute our 
admiration, by doting on human follies, and 
wondering at human trifles. 



XIX. 

By John Locke, the Philosopher. — 1632- 
1704. 

The Bible a Mysterious Source of Repose. 

I GRATEFULLY receive and rejoice in 
the light of revelation, which has set me 
at rest in many things, the manner whereof 
my poor reason can by no means make out to 
me. 



28 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 



By St. Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constan- 
tinople. — 354-407. 
The Truths of the Bible the SouVs best Food. 

"V/^EA, rather, the reading of the divine 
-■- Scriptures is not a meadow only, but a 
paradise ; for the flowers here have not a 
mere fragrance only, but fruit too, capable of 
nourishing the soul. Assuredly, then, we 
ought not hastily to pass by even those sen- 
tences of Scripture which are thought to be 
plain ; for these also have proceeded from 
the grace of the Spirit : but this grace is 
never small nor mean, but great and admir- 
able, and worthy the munificence of the giver ; 
for pearls, too, take their price, not from the 
size of the substance, but from the beauty 
of it. Even so is it with the reading of the 
divine Scriptures ; for worldly instruction 
rolls forth its trifles in abundance, and deluges 
its hearers with a torrent of vain babblings, 
but dismisses them empty-handed, and with- 
out having gathered any profit, great or 
small. 



WORDS MISCELLANEOUS. 29 

XXI. 

By Rev. John Foster. — 1 770-1 843. 

The Gospel adapted alike to Minds, however gifted or 
grovelling. 

IT is the beaeficent distinction of the gospel, 
that, notwithstanding it is of a magnitude 
to interest and to surpass angelic investiga- 
tion (and therefore assuredly to pour con- 
tempt on the pride of human intelligence 
that rejects it for its meanness), it is yet most 
expressly sent to the class which philosophers 
have always despised. And a good man feels 
it a cause of grateful joy, that a communica- 
tion has come from heaven, adapted to effect 
the happiness of multitudes, in spite of 
natural debility or neglected education. 



XXII. 

The Bible superior to all other Books. — Edwards. 

IN what other writings can we descry those 
excellences which we find in the Bible ? 
None of them are equal to it in antiquity ; for 
the first penman of the sacred Scripture hath 



30 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

the start of all philosophers, poets, and his- 
torians, and is absolutely the ancientest writer 
extant in the world. No writings are equal 
to those of the Bible, if we mention only the 
stock of human learning contained in them. 
Here linguists and philologists may find that 
which is to be found nowhere. Here rheto- 
ricians and orators may be entertained with 
a more lofty eloquence, with a choicer com- 
posure of words, and with a greater variety 
of style, than any other writers can afford 
them. Here is a book where more is under- 
stood than expressed ; where words are few, 
but the sense is full and redundant. No books 
equal this in authority, because it is the 
Word of God himself, and dictated by an 
unerring Spirit. It excels other writings in 
the excellency of its matter, which is the 
highest, noblest, and worthiest, and of the 
greatest concern to mankind. Lastly, the 
Scriptures transcend all other writings in 
their power and efficacy. 



WORDS MISCELLANEOUS. 31 

XXIII. 

From Massillon, Bishop of Clermont. — 

1 663-1 742. 

The Superiority of Biblical History. 

IN the histories which have been left us hy- 
men, we see nothing but the agency of 
man. They are men who obtain the victories, 
who take towns, who subdue kingdoms, who 
dethrone sovereigns, to elevate themselves to 
the supreme power. God appears in no part : 
men are the sole actors of all these things. 
But, in the history of the Holy Books, it is 
God alone who performs the whole. God 
aloue causeth kings to reign, placeth them 
upon their thrones, or deposeth them again. 
It is God alone who opposeth the enemy, 
who sacks towns, who disposeth of kingdoms 
and empires, who giveth peace or exciteth 
war. God alone appeareth in sacred history : 
it is He, if I may so speak, who is the sole 
hero. The kings and conquerors of the earth 
appear but as the ministers of His will. In 
short, these divine books unfold the ways of 
Providence. God, who conceals Himself in 
the other events recorded in our histories, 
seems to reveal Himself in these ; and it is in 
this book alone that we ought to learn to read 
the other histories which men have left us. 



32 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

XXIV. 

By Samuel Hayes. — Born 1760. 

The sacred page 
With calm attention scan. If on thy soul, 
As thou dost read, a ray of purer light 
Break in, oh ! check it not : give it full scope. 
Admitted, it will break the clouds which long 
Have dimmed thy sight, and lead thee, till at 

last 
Convictions, like the sun's meridian beams, 
Illuminate thy mind. 



XXV. 

By Hon. Robert Boyle, the Christian Phi- 
losopher. — 1626- 1 69 1. 

The Bible JJtost Forcibly Instructive and Impressively 
Grand. 

THE Bible is indeed amongst books what 
the diamond is amongst stones, — the 
preciousest and the sparklingest ; the most 
apt to scatter light, and yet the solidest and 
the most proper to make impressions. . . 
And as the Word of God is termed a light, so 



WORDS MISCELLANEOUS. 33 

hath it this property of what it is called, that 
both the plainest rustics may, if they will not 
wilfully shut their eyes, by the benefit of its 
light, direct their steps, and the deepest phi- 
losophers may be exercised with its abstruser 
mysteries. For thus, in the Scripture, the 
ignorant may learn all requisite knowledge, 
and the most knowing may learn to discern 
their ignorance. 

The books of Scripture illustrate and ex- 
pound each other : as, in the mariner's com- 
pass, the needle's extremity, though it seem 
to point purposely at the north, doth yet 
at the same time discover both east and west, 
as distant as they are from it and from 
each other ; so do some texts of Scripture 
guide us to the intelligence of others, from 
which they are widely distant in the Bible, 
and seem so in the sense. 

I use the Scripture, not as an arsenal to be 
resorted to only for arms and weapons to de- 
fend this party, or to defeat its enemies, but 
as a matchless temple, where I delight to be 
to contemplate the beauty, the symmetry, and 
the magnificence of the structure, and to 
increase my awe and to excite my devotion 
to the Deity there preached and adored. 



34 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

XXVI. 

By Abraham Cowley, the Poet. 

1618-1667. 

The Bible the best Exemplifier and Source of Poetry. 

ALL the books of the Bible are either 
already most admirable and exalted 
pieces of poesy, or are the best materials in 
the world for it. Amongst all holy and con- 
secrated things which the Devil ever stole and 
ahenated from the service of the Deity, as 
altars, temples, sacrifices, prayers, and the 
like, there is none that he so universally and 
so long usurped as poetry.. It is time to re- 
cover it out of the tyrant's hands, and to 
restore it to the kingdom of God, who is the 
father of it. It is time to baptize it in Jordan; 
for it will never become clean by bathing in 
the water of Damascus. 

When I consider how many bright and 
magnificent subjects the Holy Scripture affords 
and proffers, as it were, to poesy, in the wise 
managing and illustrating whereof the glory of 
God Almighty might be joined with the singu- 
lar utility and noblest delight of mankind, it is 
not without grief and indignation that I behold 
that divine science employing all her inex- 



WORDS MISCELLANEOUS. 35 

haustable riches of wit and eloquence, either 
in the wicked and beggarly flattery of great 
persons, or the unmanly idolizing of foolish 
women. 

XXVII. 

By Alexander Pope. — 1688- 1744. 
The Bible Inimitable. 

THE pure and noble, the graceful and dig- 
nified simplicity of language, is nowhere 
in such perfection as in the Scriptures and 
Homer. The whole Book of Job, with regard 
to simplicity of thought and morality, exceeds, 
beyond all comparison, the most noble parts 
of Homer. 

XXVIII. 

By Robert Hall, the Eloquent Divine. — 
1 764-1 83 1. 

The Literary Attractions of the Bible. 

THERE is something in the spirit and dic- 
tion of the Bible which is found pecu- 
liarly adapted to arrest the attention of the 
plainest and most uncultivated minds. The 
simple structure of its sentences, combined 
with a lofty spirit of poetry : its familiar allu- 



ae HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

sion to the scenes of Nature and the transac- 
tions of common life ; the delightful intermix- 
ture of narration with the doctrinal and per- 
ceptive parts ; and the profusion of miraculous 
facts, which convert it into a sort of enchanted 
ground ; its constant advertence to the Deity, 
whose perfections it renders almost visible 
and palpable, — unite in bestowing upon it an 
interest which attaches to no other perform- 
ance, and which, after assiduous and re- 
peated perusal, invests it with much of the 
charm of novelty, like the great orb of day, 
at which we are wont to gaze with unabated 
astonishment from infancy to old age. What 
other book besides the Bible could be heard 
in public assembhes from year to year with 
an attention that never tires, and an interest 
that never cloys ? 

XXIX. 

By Rev. James Hamilton. — Died 1868. 
The same. 

BUT, in giving that Bible, its divine Au- 
thor had regard to the mind of man. 
He knew that man has more curiosity than 
piety, more taste than sanctity, and that more 



WORDS MISCELLANEOUS. 37 

persons are anxious to liear some now or read 
some beauteous thing than to read or hear 
about God and the great salvation. He knew 
that few would ever ask, " What must I do to 
be saved ? " till they came in contact with the 
Bible itself; and therefore he made the Bible 
not only an instructive book, but an attractive 
one ; not only true, but enticing. He filled it 
with marvellous incident and engaging his- 
tory, with many pictures from old-world scene- 
ry, and afifecting anecdotes from the patriarch 
times ; he replenished it with stately argu- 
ment and thrilling verse, and sprinkled it over 
with sententious wisdom and proverbial pun- 
gency ; he made it a book of lofty thoughts 
and noble images, — a book of heavenly doc- 
trine, but withal of earthly adaption. In pre- 
paring a guide to immortality, Infinite Wis- 
dom gave not a dictionary nor a grammar, but 
a Bible, — a book, which, in trying to catch the 
heart of man, should captivate his taste, and 
which, in transforming his affections, should 
also expand his intellect. The pearl is of 
great price ; but even the casket is of exqui- 
site beauty. The sword is of ethereal temper, 
and nothing cuts so keen as its double edge ; 
but there are jewels on the hilt, and fine 



38 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

tracery on the scabbard. The shekels are of 
the purest ore ; but even the scrip which con- 
tains them is of a texture more curious than 
that the artists of earth could fashion it. The 
apples are gold ; but even the basket is silver. 



XXX. 

By Thomas Carlyle. — Born 1795. 
The Book of Job. 

I CALL that, apart from all theories about 
it, one of the grandest things ever written 
with pen. One feels, indeed, as if it were not 
Hebrew, such a noble universality, different 
from noble patriotism or sectarianisn, reigns 
in it. A noble book ! all men's book ! It is 
our first, oldest statement of the never-ending 
problem,— man's destiny, and God's ways 
with him here on earth ; and all in such free, 
flowing outlines, grand in its sincerity, in 
its simplicity, in its epic melody, and repose 
of reconcilement. There is the seeing eye, 
the mildly understanding heart, so true every 
way ; true eyesight and vision for all things, 
material things no less than spiritual; the 
horse, — " hast thou clothed his neck with 



WORDS MISCELLANEOUS. 39 

thunder ? " — "he laughs at the shaking of a 
spear ! " Such living likenesses were never 
since drawn. Sublime sorrow^ sublime recon- 
ciliation ; oldest choral melody, as of the heart 
of mankind ; so soft and great, as the sum- 
mer midnight, as the world, with its seas and 
stars I There is nothing written, I think, in 
the Bible or out of it, of equal literary merit. 



XXXI. 

By St. Ambrose. — 340-397. 
The Varied Richness of the Bible. 

THE Bible is a sea, having its deep senses, 
the fulness of prophetic mystery into 
which many rivers have run. But there are, 
besides this, sweet and clear rivers, fresh 
springs, that yield water unto eternal life ; 
good words, a honeycomb, acceptable sen- 
tences, which may refresh the mind of the 
hearers with spiritual drink, and delight them 
with the sweetness of moral precepts. Vari- 
ous, therefore, are the streams of the Bible. 
Thou hast what thou mayest drink first, what 
thou mayest drink second, and what thou may- 
est drink last. 



40 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK, 

XXXII. 

• By Sir Walter Scott. — 1771-1832. 
The same. 

THE most learned, acute, and diligent stu- 
dent cannot, in the longest life, obtain 
an entire knowledge of this one volume. The 
more deeply he works the mine, the richer 
and more abundant he finds the ore. New 
light continually beams from this source of 
heavenly knowledge to direct the conduct 
and illustrate the works of God and the ways 
of men; and he will, at least, leave the world 
confessing, that the more he studied the Scrip- 
tures the fuller convictions he had of his own 
ignorance and of their inestimable value. 

" Father of mercies, in Thy word 
What endless glory shines 1 
Forever be Thy name adored 

For these celestial lines. 
Oh, may these heavenly pages be 

My ever dear delight I 
And still new beauties may I see, 
And still increasing light ! " 

Mrs. Anne Steele, 1717-1778. 



WORDS MISCELLANEOUS. 41 

XXXIII. 

By Rev. George Gilfillan. 

The surpassing Richness, Unity, a?zd Originality of 
the Bible. 

THE Bible i» a mass of beautiful figures. 
Its words and its thoughts are alike 
poetical. It has gathered around its central 
truths all natural beauty and interest. It is 
a temple, with one altar and one God, but 
illuminated by a thousand varied lights, and 
studded with a thousand ornaments. It has 
substantially but one declaration to make ; but 
it utters it in the voices of the creation. Shin- 
ing forth from the excellent glory, its light 
has been reflected on a myriad intervening 
objects, till it has been at length attempered 
for our earthly vision. It now beams upon 
us at once from the heart of man and from the 
countenance of nature. It has arrayed itself 
in the charms of fiction ; it has gathered new 
beauty from the works of creation, and new 
warmth and power from the very passions of 
clay ; it has pressed into its service the ani- 
mals of the forest, the flowers of the field, the 
stars of heaven, — all the elements of Nature. 
. . . Thus the quick spirit of the Book 



42 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

has ransacked creation to lay its treasures 
on Jehovah's altar; united the innumerable 
rays of a far-streaming glory on the little hill 
Calvary ; and woven a garland for the bleed- 
ing brow of Immanuel, the flowers of which 
have been culled from the gardens of the 
universe. 

In relation to other books, the Bible occu- 
pies a peculiar and solitary position. It is 
independent of all others ; it imitates no other 
book ; it copies none ; it hardly alludes to any 
other, whether in praise or blame ; and this is 
nearly as true of its later portions, when books 
were common, as of its earlier, when books 
were scarce. It proves thus its originality 
and power. 



XXXIV. 

By Sir William Jones. — 1646-1694. 

The Bible the richest Treasury. 

ri'^HAT great Oriental scholar said, " I have 
-L regularly and attentively read the Holy 
Scriptures, and am of the opinion that this 
volume, independently of its divine origin, 
contains more true sublimity, more exquisite 



WORDS MISCELLANEOUS. 43 

beauty, more pure morality, more important 
history, and finer strains both of poetry and 
eloquence, than could be collected from all 
other books." 



XXXV. 

By O. M. Mitchell, LL.D., the Devout 

Astronomer and Patriotic General. 

1 8 10-1862. 

The Wonderful Book. 

THE most wonderful volume in existence 
is, beyond a doubt, the Bible. It is 
wonderful for its high pretensions, for its al- 
most incredible claims to divine origin, for 
its exceeding antiquity. It is wonderful in 
its revelation of the being of God, and in its 
declarations concerning the attributes of this 
Almighty Spirit. It is wonderful for its 
professed revelation of the creation of the 
universe, the formation of man, the origin of 
evil, man's fall from innocence, and his res- 
toration to happiness. It is wonderful for its 
daring chronology, its positive history, its 
prophetic declarations. It is wonderful on 



44 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

account of its sublime philosophy, its ex- 
quisite poetry, its magnificent figures, its 
overwhelming language of description. It 
is wonderful for the diversity of its writers, — 
diverse in their attainments, countries, lan- 
guages, and education. It is wonderful for 
its boldness, in the use of illustrations, meta- 
phors, figures, drawn from every department 
of human knowledge, from natural history, 
from meteorology, from optics, from astronomy. 
It is wonderful for the superior conceptions 
of its writers of the grandeur and magni- 
ficence of the physical universe. It is won- 
derful that it has exposed itself to attack and 
destruction at every point of time, by every 
discovery of man, by the revelations of 
geology, chronology, history, ancient remains 
disembowelled from the earth, by astronomy, 
by the discoveries of natural history, and, 
above all, by the non-fulfilment of its historical 
predictions. And it is most of all wonderful, 
that up to the present time, in the opinion of 
hundreds of thousands of the judicious, re- 
flecting, and reasoning among earth's inhabit- 
ants, during three thousand years since its 
first book was written, it has maintained its 
high authority, and has retained, in all this 



WORDS MISCELLANEOUS. 45 

vast lapse of time, a powerful sway over the 
human mind. 

No, my friends : the analogies of Nature, 
applied to the moral government of God, 
would crush all hope in the sinful soul. 
There, for millions of ages, these stern laws 
have reigned supreme. There is no deviation, 
no modification, no yielding to the refractory 
or disobedient. All is harmony, because all 
is obedience. Close forever, if you will, this 
strange book claiming to be God's revelation; 
blot out for ever its lessons of creative 
power, God's superabounding providence, 
God's fatherhood and loving guardianship to 
man, His erring offspring, and then unseal the 
leaves of that mighty volume which the finger 
of God has written in the stars of heaven, 
and in these flashing letters of living light 
we read only the dread sentence, " The soul 
that sinneth, it shall surely die." 



46 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

XXXVI. 

By Robert Pollok. -- 1798- 1827. 

MOST wondrous Book ! bright candle of 
the Lord, 
Star of eternity ! the only star 
By which the bark of man can navigate 
The sea of life, and gain the coast of bliss 
Securely ; only star which rose on Time, 
And on its dark and troubled billows still, 
As generation, drifting swiftly by. 
Succeeded generation, threw a ray 
Of heaven's own light, and to the hills of 
God — 

The everlasting hills — pointed the sinner's 
eye. 

XXXVII. 

By John Milton, the Statesman and Poet. — 
1 608- 1 674. 

The Intelligibleness and Excellence of the Bible, — of 
its Poetry, its Oratory, and its Politics. 

/^OD has ordained His gospel to be the 
V-T revelation of His power and wisdom in 
Christ Jesus. And this is one depth of His 
wisdom, that he could so plainly reveal so 
great a measure of it to the gross, distorted 



WORDS MISCELLANEOUS. 47 

apprehension of decayed mankind. Let 
others, therefore, dread and shun the Scrip- 
tures for their darkness : I shall wish I may 
deserve to be reckoned among those who ad- 
mire and dwell upon them for their clearness. 
There are no songs comparable to the 
songs of Zion, no orations equal to those of 
prophets, and no politics like those which the 
Scriptures teach. 

Better teaching 
The solid rules of civil government 
In their majestic, unaffected style, 
Than all the oratory of Greece and Rome. 
In them is plainest taught, and easiest learnt, 
What makes a nation happy, and keeps it so ; 
What ruins kingdoms, and lays cities flat : 
These only, with our law, best form a king. 

XXXVIII. 

By Rev. Henry W. Beecher. 
The Bible, how deprived of Life and Power. 
"TTTHAT a pin is when the diamond has 
V V dropped from its setting, that is the 
Bible when its emotive truths have been 
taken away. What a babe's clothes are when 
the babe has slipped out of them into death, 
and the mother's arms clasp only raiment, 



48 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

would be the Bible, if the Babe of Bethlehem, 
and the truths of deep-heartedness that 
clothed His life, should slip out of it. 

XXXIX. 

By Sir Christopher Hatton. — Died 1791. 

To know the Scriptures a Chief Duty and Interest. 
TT is justly accounted a piece of excellent 
-L knowledge to understand the law of the 
land and the customs of our country ; but 
how much more excellent is it to know the 
statutes of heaven, and the laws of eternity, 
the immutable and perpetual laws of justice 
and righteousness ! to know the will and 
pleasure of the great Monarch and universal 
King of the world ! '' I have seen an end of 
all perfection ; but Thy commandments, O 
God ! are exceedingly broad." 

XL. 

By Claudius Salmasius. — i 596-1653. 
The Same. 

T HAVE lost an immense portion of time, 

-L time, that most precious thing in the 
world ! Had I but one year more, it should 
be spent in studying David's psalms and 
Paul's epistles. 



WORDS MISCELLANEOUS. 49 

XLI. 

By Sir Walter Scott. 

The only Book. 

"\TT"HILE lying at the point of death, Sir 
' ^ Walter said to Mr. Lockhart, his son- 
in-law, "Read to me." Mr. L. said, "What 
book shall I read ? " — " What book ! " replied 
Sir Walter: " there is but one book, — the Bi- 
ble ! " 

XLII. 

By Victoria, Queen of Great Britain. 

The Bible the Chief Means of National Prosperity. 

A FEW years ago an African prince sent 
an embassy with costly presents to Vic- 
toria, who, wondering at the prosperity of 
the country, requested to be informed as to 
the secret of England's greatness and glory. 
Having procured a very costly copy of the 
Bible, she bade the ambassadors bear it home 
to their master, with this message from her 
lips : " Tell the prince that this is the secret 
of England's greatness." 



50 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

XLIII. 

By Hon. Chevalier C. K. J. Bunsen of Prussia. 
Born 1 79 1. 

The Bible the only Basis of Civil and Religious Lib- 
erty. 

I HOPE that our children and our children's 
children will see religious liberty, not only 
in this land (England), and in my own country, 
but over the world : when the Bible and the 
faith of the gospel will form the basis, as it 
is the only basis, of civil and religious liber- 
ty ; for the Bible is the only real cement of 
nations, and the only cement that can bind 
religious hearts together. 



XLIV. 

By Hon. Edward Everett. — Born 1794. 

The Bible and Public Men. 

GROTIUS, the great founder of our mod- 
ern science of international law, was a 
most assiduous student of the Bible. He was 
profoundly a religious man. The foundations 
of his moral treatise on " The Law of Na- 
tions " are laid in the Scriptures of the Old 



WORDS MISCELLANEOUS. 51 

and New Testament; and the original con- 
ception of the work was in the genuine spirit 
of Christian philanthropy. His golden treatise 
on the truth of the Christian religion was in- 
tended by him as a manual for his adventur- 
ous fellow-citizens, then just engaging in the 
trade with the East, by aid of which they 
might scatter the seeds of sacred truth on 
distant and heathen shores. 

I scarce know of a more beautiful illustra- 
tion of the adaption of the religion of the 
Bible to the purposes of active life than is 
thus afforded in this model Christian states- 
man, who, on the one hand, continually forti- 
fies the maxims of the public law by Scripture 
authority, and, on the other hand, composed a 
treatise on the evidences of Christianity, to be 
used by his seafaring countrymen in their 
voyages to remote regions. That was testi- 
mony to the value of the Bible. 



52 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

XLV. 

By George Washington. — 1732 -1799. 
The Bible supremely Beneficent. 

THE free cultivation of letters, the un- 
bounded extension of commerce, the pro- 
gressive refinement of manners, the growing 
liberality of sentiment, and, above all, the pure 
and benign light of Revelation, have had a 
meliorating influence on mankind, and in- 
creased the blessings of society. 

Of all the dispositions and habits which 
lead to political prosperity, religion and moral- 
ity are indispensable supports. In vain would 
that man claim the tribute of patriotism who 
should labor to subvert these pillars of human 
happiness, these firmest props of the duties of 
men and citizens. The mere politician, equal- 
ly with the pious man, ought to respect them. 
And let us with caution indulge the supposi- 
tion, that morality can be sustained without 
religion. Whatever may be conceded to the 
influence of refined education on minds of 
a peculiar structure, reason and experience 
both forbid us to expect that national moral- 
ity can prevail in exclusion of religious princi- 
ple. 



WORDS MISCELLANEOUS. 63 

XLVI. 

By John Locke. — 1632- 1704. 

The lat'gcst Good of Mankind most fully assured by 
the Bible. 

THAT the Holy Scriptures are one of the 
greatest blessings which God bestows 
upon the sons of men is generally acknowl- 
edged by all who know any thing of the value 
and worth of them. What direction can man 
expect, by which he may be fortified against 
all enemies of his good, either within or with- 
out him, that is not there given? What 
encouragements would he have, which are 
not therein displayed before him ? And what 
cavils can be brought against any part of truth 
contained therein, to which they themselves 
yield not a full resolve, — one place of Scripture 
so exactly clearing, expounding, and illustrat- 
ing another? Yet, to amazement, it is ob- 
served that man, who is so highly and princi- 
pally concerned in it, doth too little value it: 
he can weary himself in any secular affair, 
but diligently to search the Scriptures accord- 
ing to our Lord's advice, is to him tedious 
and burdensome. 



54 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

XLVIl. 

By Hon. Joseph C. Hornblower, late Chief 
Justice of New Jersey. — 1777- 1864. 

T]ie sa7ne. 

"T~ ET this precious volume have its proper 
-L-^ influence on the hearts of men, and our 
liberties are safe, our country blessed, and the 
world happy. There is not a tie that unites 
us to our families, not a virtue that endears 
us to our country, nor a hope that thrills our 
bosoms in the prospect of future happiness, 
that has not its foundation in this Bible. It 
is the charter of charters, the palladium of 
liberty, the standard of righteousness. 

XL VIII. 

By Hon. William H. Seward. 

The Bible essential to the true Advancement of Man- 
kind. 

I DO not believe human society, includiug 
not merely a few persons in any state, but 
whole masses of men, ever has attained, or 
ever can attain, a high state of intelligence, 
virtue, security, liberty, or happiness, without 
the Holy Scriptures ; and that the whole hope 
of human progress is suspended on the ever- 
growing influence of the Bible. 



WOEDS MISCELLANEOUS. 55 

XLIX. 

By Hon. Simon Greenleaf, late Professor 
in Harvard University. — 1783-1853. 

The Saiictions of the Bible the true Source of Public 
a7id Private Security. 

OF the divine character of the Bible, I 
think no man, who dedh honestly with 
his oivn mind and heart, ^an entertain a rea- 
sonable doubt. For myself, I must say, that, 
having for many years made the evidences of 
Christianity the subject of close and patient 
study, the result has been a firm and increas- 
ing conviction of the authenticity and plenary 
inspiration of the Bible. It is indeed the 
Word of God. It opens up to our view the 
only true source of moral obligation, or of 
public and private duty, and enforces these 
with the only sanctions that can affect the mind 
and reach the conscience of man ; namely, 
the omniscience and goodness and mercy of 
God, and the certain retributions of the life to 
come. Without these sanctions, the laws are 
no longer observed, oaths lose their hold on 
the conscience, promises are violated, frauds 
are multiplied, and moral obligation is dis- 



66 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

solved. And these securities natural religion 
does not furnish : they are found in the Bible 
alone. In sublimity of thought, in grandeur 
of conception, in purity and elevation of 
moral principle, in the practical wisdom of its 
teachings, and the universahty and perpetuity 
of their application, and, above all, in the high 
and important character of its themes, the 
Holy Bible is not even approached by any 
human composition. It is only this that can 
make men wise unto salvation. 



By Hon. John McLean, late Judge of the 
Supreme Court of the United States.-— 
Born 1785. 

Soda/ Purity, Order, and Refineme7it secured by the 
Bible. 

^HE laws which belong to the social rela- 
-*- tion are found in the Bible. The duties 
of husband and wife, parent and child, and all 
other connections which necessarily belong to 
a refined civilization, are prescribed in the 
Scriptures. We are commanded to love our 
neighbor, and in all things to do unto others 



WORDS MISCELLANEOUS. 57 

as we should wish them to do unto us. If 
these rules were faithfully observed by indi- 
viduals and communities, the highest degree 
of earthly happiness would be attained. 



LI. 



By Hon. Lewis Cass. — Born 1782. 

The Bible, diligently and devotedly read, a Nation^ s 
Security. 

THE youth of America have a glorious 
theatre of exertion before them. That 
they may appreciate its duties and its rewards, 
and may be prepared for its offers and de- 
mands, by the lessons of the sabbath and the 
Bible, must be the sincere wish of every one 
interested in the progress and prospects of 
our country, and especially of those who must' 
soon pass from its councils, and see its desti- 
nies committed to a new generation. Im- 
pressed with these considerations, I earnestly 
hope that God's day may be hallowed, and 
His word studied, through this whole land, till 
their obligations are felt and acknowledged 
by all its people. 



58 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

LII. 

By Hon. Samuel Southard. — 1 787-1 842. 

The Claims of the Bible on Scholars. 

/^F all men, American scholars ought not 
^-^ to be ignorant of any thing which the 
Bible contains. If Cicero could declare that 
the laws of the Twelve Tables were worth 
all the libraries of the philosophers ; if they 
were the carmen necessarium of the Roman 
youth, — how laboriously ought you to investi- 
gate its contents, and inscribe them upon your 
hearts ! You owe to them the blessed civil 
institutions under which you live, and the 
glorious freedom which you enjoy ; and if 
these are to be perpetuated, it can only be by 
a regard to those principles. Make your 
scholarship subservient to the support of the 
same unchanging principles. Our refuge is 
in the firm purpose of educated and moral 
men. Draw, then, your rules from the only 
safe authority. 



WORDS MISCELLANEOUS. 59 

LIII. 

By William Tyndal, author of the ver- 
sion of the Bible bearing his name. — 
1477- 1536. 

Christians retidered intelligent and steadfast only by 
the Bible. 

"TTTHILE I am sowing in one place, they 
V V ravage the field I have just left. I 
cannnot be everywhere. If Christians had 
the Scriptures in their own tongue, they could 
themselves withstand these sophists: without 
the Bible it is impossible to establish the 
laity in the truth. If God give me life, ere 
many years the ploughboys shall know more 
of the Scriptures than you do. 

LIV. 

By William Chillingworth, D.D. — 1602- 
1644. 

The Bible the best Guide to Salvation. 

WHEN you say that unlearned and 
ignorant men cannot understand 
Scripture, I would desire you to come out 
of the clouds, and tell us what you mean : 



60 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

whether that they cannot understand all 
Scripture ; or that they cannot understand any 
Scripture ; or that they cannot understand 
so much as is sufficient for their direction to 
heaven. If the first, I beheve the learned 
are in the same case. If the second, every 
man's experience will confute you ; for who is 
there that is not capable of a sufficient un- 
derstanding of the story, the precepts, the 
promises, and the threats of the gospel ? If 
the third, that they may understand some- 
thing, but not enough for their salvation, I 
ask you why, then, doth St. Paul say to 
Timothy, " The Scriptures are able to make 
him wise unto salvation '' ? 

I will love no man the less for diflfering in 
opinion from me. I am fully assured that 
God does not, and therefore that man ought 
not to, require any more of any man than this, 
— to believe the Scripture to be God's word, 
to endeavor to find the true sense of it, and 
to live according to it. 



WORDS MISCELLANEOUS. 61 

LV. 

By Hon. George P. Marsh. 

The Value of the one authorized English Version of 
the Bible. 

TO revise under present circumstances is 
to sectarianize, to divide the one catholic 
Engh'sh Bible, the common standard of author- 
ity in Protestant England and America, into a 
dozen different revelations, each authoritative 
for its own narrow circle, — a counterfeit : 
it is a practical surrender of that human ex- 
cellence of form in the English Bible, which, 
next to the unspeakable value of its substance, 
is the greatest gift which God has bestowed 
on the British and American people. 

LVI. 

By Hon. Benjamin F. Butler, formerly At- 
torney-General of the United States. 

The Ideal of Human Perfectioti realized in the Bible. 

NOT only does the Bible inculcate, wn'th 
sanctions of highest import, a system 
of the purest morality, but, in the person and 
character of our blessed Saviour, it exhibits 



62 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

a tangible illustration of that system. In 
Him we have set before us — what, till the 
publication of the gospel, the world had never 
seen — a model of feeling and action, adapted 
to all times, places, and circumstances ; and 
combining so much of wisdom, benevolence, 
and holiness, that none can fathom its sub- 
limity, and yet presented in a form so simple, 
that even a child may be made to understand, 
and taught to love it. 

LVII. 

By Axel Oxenstierna, Chancellor of Sweden, 
to Whitelock, the English Ambassador. — 
1583-1654. 

The Bible as a Source of Knowledge and Enjoyment. 

YOU are now in the prime of your age 
and vigor, and in great favor and 
business ; but all this will leave you, and 
you will one day better understand and relish 
what I say. You will then find that there is 
more wisdom, truth, comfort, and pleasure in 
retiring, and in turning your heart from the 
world to the good Spirit of Grod, and in read- 
ing the Bible, than in all the courts and favors 
of princes. 



WORDS MISCELLANEOUS. 63 

LVIII. 

By Hon. Daniel Webster. — 1782-1852. 
His Two-fold Estimate of the Sacred Volu7ne. 

TO a young friend admiring the poetry 
of the Bible, he said, " Ah, my friend ! 
the poetry of Isaiah, Job, and Habakkuk is 
beautiful indeed ; but when you have lived, 
as I have, sixty-nine years, you will give more 
for the fourteenth and seventeenth chapters 
of John's Gospel, or for one of the epistles, 
than for all the poetry of the Bible ! 

I have read it through many times : I now 
make a practice of going through it once a 
year. It is the book of all others for lawyers 
as well as divines ; and I pity the man who 
cannot find in it a rich supply of thought, and 
rules for conduct. 

LIX. 

By Rev. John Newton. — 1 725-1 807. 
Relative Value of the Bible. 

I HAVE many books that I cannot sit down 
to read : they are indeed good and sound ; 
but, like half-pence, there goes a great quan- 
tity to a small amount. There are silver 



64 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

books, and a very few golden books ; but I 
have one book worth them all, called the 
Bible. 

" This holy book I'd rather own, 

Than all the gold and gems 
That e'er in monarch's coffers shone, 

Than all their diadems. 

Nay, were the seas one chrysolite. 

The earth one golden ball. 
And diamonds all the stars of night, 

This book was worth them all. 

Ah, no ! the soul ne'er found relief 
In glittering hoards of wealth ; 

Gems dazzle not the eye of grief; 
Gold cannot purchase health. 

But here a blessed balm appears 

To heal the deepest woe ; 
And those who read this book in tears. 

Their tears shall cease to flow." 

Anon. 



HOMAGE OF SCEPTICS TO THE BIBLE. 

/^F the authors of the foregoing passages, 
^^ three at least — Robert Boyle, John 
Newton, and Richard Cecil — in early life 



WORDS MISCELLANEOUS. 65 

denied the divine inspiration of the Bible. 
In ripened manhood, however, they were bold 
advocates of the gospel, and richly enjoyed 
its consolations. But the writers of the four 
selections which follow, though they may have 
failed of like felicity, had the rare magna- 
minity to acknowledge, themselves being 
judges, that " their rock is not as our Rock." 



LX. 



By Rev. Theodore Parker. — 1 810-1860. 
The Bible a Cherished Book. 

YIEW it in what light we may, the Bible 
is a very surprising phenomenon. It 
is read of a sabbath in all the ten thousand 
pulpits of our land. In all the temples of 
Christendom is its voice lifted up, week by 
week. The sun never sets on its gleaming 
page. It goes equally to the cottage of the 
plain man, and the palace of the king. It is 
woven into the literature of the scholar, and 
colors the talk of the street. The bark of 
the merchant cannot sail the sea without it, 
nor ship of war go to the conflict but the 

Bible is there. It blesses us when we are 
5 



66 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

born ; gives names to half Christendom ; 
rejoices with us ; has sympathy for our mourn- 
ing ; tempers our grief to finer issues. It is 
the better part of our sermons. It lifts man 
above himself: our best of uttered prayers 
are in its storied speech, wherewith our 
fathers and the patriarchs prayed. The timid 
man, about waking from this dream of life, 
looks through the glass of Scripture, and 
his eyes grow bright : he does not fear to 
stand alone, to tread the way unknown and 
distant, to take the death-angel by the hand, 
and bid farewell to wife and babes and home. 
Men rest on this their dearest hopes. It tells 
them of God and of his blessed Son, of 
earthly duties and of heavenly rest. 



LXI. 

By Denis Diderot. — 171 3-1 784. 

Words of that Atheistic French Philosopher, ad- 
dressed in Conversation to his Boon Companions. 

FOR a wonder, gentlemen, for a wonder, 
I know nobody, either in France or any- 
where else, who could write and speak with 



WORDS MISCELLANEOUS. 07 

more art and talent. Notwithstanding all the 
bad which we have said, and no doubt with 
good reason, of this devil of a book, 1 defy 
you all, as many as are here, to prepare a 
tale so simple and so touching as the tale of 
the passion and death of Jesus Christ ; which 
produces the same effect, which makes a sen- 
sation as strong and as generally felt, and 
whose influence will be the same after so 
many centuries." 

This unexpected speech astonished all the 
hearers, and was followed by a pretty long 
silence. 



LXII. 
By Hon. Thomas Jefferson. — 1743-1826. 

The Bible improves all Earnest Readers. 

I HAVE always said, and always will say, 
that the studious perusal of the Sacred Vol- 
ume, will make better citizens, better fathers, 
and better husbands. 



68 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

LXIII. 

By that Sceptical and Philosophical Moralist, 
Jean-Jacques RuGSSEAu. Born 1712 ; died 
1778. 

The Majesty and Suprejnacy of the Scriptures. 

I WILL confess to you that the majesty of 
the Scriptures strikes me with admiration, 
as the purity of the gospel hath its influence 
on my heart. Peruse the works of our philos- 
ophers, with all their pomp of diction, — how 
mean, how contemptible, are they, compared 
with the Scripture ! Is it possible that a book, 
at once so simple and sublime, should be 
merely the work of man ? Is it possible that 
the sacred personage whose history it contains 
should be Himself a mere man? Do we find 
that He assumes the tone of an enthusiast or 
ambitious sectary? What sweetness, what 
purity, in His manner ! What an effecting 
gracefulness in His delivery ! What sublimity 
in His maxims ! What profound wisdom in 
His discourses ! What presence of mind, what 
subtlety, what truth, in His replies ! How 
great the command over His passions I Where 
is the man, where the philosopher, who could 



WORDS MISCELLANEOUS. 69 

SO live, and so die, without weakness, without 
ostentation ? When Plato described his ima- 
ginary good man, loaded with all the shame 
of guilt, yet meriting the highest rewards of 
virtue, he described exactly the character of 
Jesus Christ : the resemblance was so striking, 
that all the fathers perceived it. 

The death of Socrates, peacefully philoso- 
phizing with his friends, appears the most 
agreeable that could be wished for : that of 
Jesus, expiring in the midst of agonizing 
pains, abused, insulted, and accused by a 
whole nation, is the most horrible that could 
be feared. Socrates, in receiving the cup of 
poison, blessed, indeed, the necessary execu- 
tioner who administered it ; but Jesus, in the 
midst of excruciating tortures, prayed for His 
merciless tormentors. Yes : if the life and 
death of Socrates, which nobody presumes to 
doubt, were those of a sage, the life and death 
of Jesus were those of a God. 

Shall we suppose the evangelic history a 
mere fiction ? Indeed, my friend, it bears not 
the marks of fiction : on the contrary, the his- 
tory of Socrates, which nobody presumes to 
doubt, is not so well attested as that of Jesus 
Christ. Such a supposition, in fact, only 



70 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

shifts the difficulty without obviating it. It is 
more inconceivable that a number of persons 
should agree to write such a history, than that 
one only should furnish the subject of it. The 
Jewish authors were incapable of the diction, 
and strangers to the morality, contained in the 
gospel, the marks of whose truth are so strik- 
ing and inimitable, that the inventor would be 
a more astonishing character than the hero. 




PART SECOND. 



HOMAGE 

OP 

EMINENT PERSONS 

TO 

The Book, 

IN 

WORDS APOLOGETIC AND EVIDENTIAL. 



" ' Tis Revelation satisfies all doubts, 
Explains all mysteries, except he7' ownP 




Q^^'^ 



** A// Scripture is given by Itispiration of God.^ 




PART II. 



WOEDS APOLOGETIC AISD EVIDENTIAL. 



IS the Bible credible? is it diviiiel}^ in- 
spired? can its credibility and inspiration 
be firmly established? are questions which 
every reader of it is bound to settle for him- 
self; and there are three ways of doing this, 
neither of which conflicts with the others. 
There are advantages, moreover, belonging to 
each. 

The first is the literary way, which few 
besides scholars find time and disposition to 
travel. Yet every divergent road, and by- 
way as well, will yield its wealth of confirma- 
tory proof to reward diligent and wakeful 
explorers. 

The second mode of becoming assured of 
the divine origin of the Bible is by experi- 
ence. Profound philosophers and unlettered 

73 



74 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

peasants may be equals here. Historic testi- 
mony and erudite reasoning are here out of 
the account. Men know that the Bible claims 
to be from God, and that to obey its moral 
teachings is right, fitting, and beautiful. The 
Saviour, moreover, declared His doctrines to 
be from God ; and He gave mankind this 
one infallible rule for testing their divinity: 
" If any man will do His will [the will of the 
Father which He taught] He shall know of 
the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether 
I speak of myself" 

Another and third process of arriving at a 
firm conviction that the Bible is a record of 
inspired and infallible truth, is by thoughtfully 
weighing the arguments, suggestions^ and opin- 
ions of persons eminent for wisdom and worth. 
This is no blind submission to authority. It is, 
rather, the acceptance of manifold challenges 
to manly and earnest reflection. While one 
thus responsibly decides as to the value of 
the maxims, hints, and opinions of another, he 
may also employ them to elaborate theories 
and conclusions peculiarly his own: even as 
the great naturalist Cuvier reached his splen- 
did results in comparative anatomy, by recon- 
structing animals of a former era from no other 
data than here and there a fossil tooth or bone. 



APOLOGETIC AND EVIDENTIAL. 75 

I. 

From Barker's Bible. — 1 594. 

HERE is the spring where waters flowe, 
To quench our heate of sinne ; 
Here is the tree where trueth doth grow, 

To lead our lives therein ; 
Here is the judge that stints the strife, 

Where men's devices faille ; 
The tidings of salvation deare 

Come to our eares from hence ; 
The fortress of our faith is here, 

And shield of our defence. 



II. 



By Monsieur F. P. G. Guizox, the Philosophic 
Statesman and Historian. — Born 1787. 

The Bible the best Bulwark of the Faith. 

THE Christian faith has been, and is still, 
very fiercely and obstinately attacked. 
How many efforts have been and are still 
made ; how many books, serious or frivolous, 
able or silly, have been and are spread inces- 



76 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

santly, — in order to destroy it in men's minds ! 
Where has this redoubtable struggle been 
supported with the greatest energy and suc- 
cess ? and where has Christian faith been best 
defended ? There, where the reading of the 
Sacred Books is a general and assiduous part 
of the public worship ; there, where it takes 
place in the interior of families, and in solitary 
meditation. It is the Bible, the Bible itself, 
which combats and triumphs most efficacious- 
ly in the war between incredulity and belief. 



III. 



By Sir Isaac Newton, the Astronomer and 
Philosopher. — 1 642-1 727. 

The Bible the ?nost Sublime and Credible of Books. 

"TTTE account the Scriptures of God to be 
' ^ the most sublime philosophy. 
I iSnd more sure marks of authenticity in 
the Bible than in any profane history what- 
ever. 



APOLOGETIC AND EVIDENTIAL. 77 

IV. 

By Rev. Henry Rogers, the Essayist. — Born 
1814. 

That the Gospels are Fictions, Incredible. 

AS Lord Baeon said that he would sooner 
believe " all the fables of the Talmud, 
than that this universal frame was without a 
mind/' so I could sooner believe all those 
fables, than that minds that could only pro- 
duce Talmuds should have conceived such 
fictions as the gospel. I would as soon 
believe that some dull chronicler of the Middle 
Ages composed Shakspeare's plays, or a 
ploughman had written " Paradise Lost ; ' ' only 
that, to parallel the present case, we ought to 
believe that four ploughmen wrote four " Para- 
dise Losts ! " Nay, I would as soon believe 
that most laughable theory of learned folly, 
that the monks of the Middle Ages compiled 
all the classics ! 

The New Testament is not more different 
from the writings of Jews, or superior to 
them, than it is different from the writings of 
the Fathers, and superior to them. It stands, 
alone, like the Peak of Teneriffe. The Alps 



78 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

amidst the flats of Holland would not present 
a greater contrast than the New Testament 
and the Fathers. And, the further we come 
down, the less capable morally, and nearly as 
incapable intellectually, do the rapidly degen- 
erating Christians appear of producing such 
a fiction as the New Testament ; so that, if it 
be asked whether it was not possible that 
some Christians of after-times might have 
forged these books, one must say, with Paley, 
that they could not. 



By Rev. William Ellery Channing, D.D. 
1780-1842. 

The Divine Reality of the Gospels. 

THE Gospels must be true: they were 
drawn from a living original; they were 
founded on reality. The character of Jesus 
is not a fiction. He was what He claimed to 
be, and what His followers attested. Nor is 
this all. Jesus not only was. He is still, the 
Son of God, the Saviour of the world. 



APOLOGETIC AND EVIDENTIAL. 79 

VI. 

By Joseph Angus, D.D 

The Character of Christ proves the Scriptures to be 
Divine. 

f I ^HE Bible is the one book whicb claims 
-L " God for its author, unmixed truth for 
its contents, and salvation for its end." If we 
admit the authority of our Lord as a divine 
Teacher, the authority of the Bible is estab- 
lished. If we deny the authority of the Bi- 
ble, we deny the truth of some of His most 
frequent teachings, and with it the divinity 
of His mission. 

Among the most decisive proofs of the di- 
vine origin of the Scriptures is the character 
of Christ. It is a proof, however, rather to 
be felt than to be described; and its force will 
be in proportion to the tone of moral sentiment 
in the reader. Holy and pure minds w^ill feel 
it more than others ; and such as are like 
Nathaniel, the " Israelite, indeed, in whom is 
no guile," will exclaim with him, '^ Rabbi, 
Thou art the Son of God ; Thou art the King 
of Israel." 



80 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

VII. 

By Prof. Calvin E. Stowe, D.D. 
Cavillers against Divine Inspiratio7t. 

THESE men say, that the Bible is no more 
inspired than the writings of Homer and 
Shakspeare, and other great men whom God 
has fitted to be the instructors of mankind. 
Well, then, let us try and see. Let us, for a 
while, use Homer and Shakspeare, instead 
of the Bible, — say night and morning, in our 
family prayers ; when we meet in the house 
of God for His worship ; in the hours of sick- 
ness and calamity and distress ; at funerals, 
when all our earthly hopes are blighted, and 
we lay our dearest friends in the grave : let 
us then, instead of reading the Bible, take a 
few passages from Homer and Shakspeare. 
How long do you think this would last, before 
we should be glad to get back to our Bible 
again ? 

" God's book, rash doubter, holds the plain record : 
Dar'st talk of hopes aud doubts against that Word ? 
Dar'st palter with it in a quibbling sense ? 
That book shall judge thee when thou passest hence. 
Then, — with thy spirit from the body freed, — 
Then shalt thou know, see, feel, what's life indeed ! " 

R. H. Dana. 



APOLOGETIC AND EVIDENTIAL. 81 

VIII. 

By D. Simpson. 

The Bible Divinely Inspired. 

THE Bible must be the invention either 
of good men or angels, had men or devils, 
or of God. 

It could not be the invention of good men 
or angels ; for they neither would nor could 
make a book, and tell lies all the time they 
were writing, saying. Thus saiili the Lord, 
when it was their own invention. 

It could not be the invention of bad men 
or devils : for they could not make a book 
which commands all duty, forbids all sin, and 
condemns their souls to all eternity. We 
therefore draw this conclusion: The Bible 
must have been given by Divine Inspiration. 

IX. 

By S. T. Coleridge. — 1772-1834. 

Proof from Self -consciousness. 

I KNOW the Bible is inspired, because it 
finds me at greater depths of my being than 
any other book. 



82 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

X. 

By Rev. R. Chevenix Trench. — 1807. 

Unity of the Bible. 

NO single age beheld the birth of this 
book, which was well nigh two thousand 
years ere it was fully formed and had reached 
its full completion. Nor can its unity, if it 
exist, be accounted for from its having had 
but one class of men for its human authors ; 
since men not of one class alone, but of many, 
and those the widest apart, — kings and herds- 
men, wise men and simple, have alike brought 
their one stone or more, and been permitted 
to build them into this august dome and tem- 
ple which God, through so many ages, was 
rearing to its glorious height. 

XL 

By Rev. Albert Barnes. — Born 1798. 

The Wonderful Unity of the Bible. 

YOU can not hind up the literature of any 
other people, making one organic vol- 
ume, as the Bible is bound up. You cannot 
thus bind up Grecian literature in one volume. 
You have Homer, and Hesiod, and Herodotus, 



APOLOGETIC AND EVIDENTIAL. 83 

and Thucydides, and Aristotle, and Plato, a/ic? 

Sophocles, and ^schylus ; but they would 
not, and could not, make one volume, having a 
beginning, a middle, and an end. There is 
no reason why it should begin thus, why it 
should advance thus ; and there is no catas- 
trophe at its close. It is one book. They are 
many books. There is no unity. They are 
not the production of one cla^s of men, except 
as the Greeks in general were distinguished 
from the rest of mankind. 



XII. 

By Francis (Lord Verulam) Bacon. — 
1561-1626. 

The Bible the best Revealer of God, and the best Source 
of Theology. 

THY creatures have been my books, but 
thy Scriptures much more : I have 
sought Thee in the courts, fields, and gardens, 
but I have found Thee in Thy temples. 

W^ I am persuaded, that if the choicest and 
^B best of those observations upon texts of 
^B Scripture which have been made dispersedly 

I 



84 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

in sermons within the island of Britain, by the 
space of these forty years and more, had been 
set down in a continuance, it had been the 
best work on divinity which had been written 
since the apostles' times. 



XIII. 

By J. W. V. Goethe. — 1749-1832. 

The Bible and Reason. 

THE farther the ages advance in cultiva- 
tion, the more can the Bible be used, 
partly as the foundation, partly as the means, 
of education, not, of course, by superficial, but 
by really wise men. 

XIV. 

By JoHANN Kepler. — 1 571-1630. 

The Language of the Scriptures Popular, not Scientific. 

"TTTE astronomers say, with the common 
V V people, the planets stand still or go 
down ; the sun rises and sets. How much 
less should we require that the Scriptures of 
divine inspiration, setting aside the common 



APOLOGETIC AND EVIDENTIAL. 85 

modes of speech^ should shape tlieir words 
according to the model of the natural sciences, 
and, by emploj^ing a dark and inappropriate 
phraseology about things which surpass the 
comprehension of those whom it designs to 
instruct, perplex the simple people of God, 
and thus obstruct its own way towards the 
attainment of the far more exalted object at 
which it aims ! 

XV. 

By M. F. Maury, LL.D. — Born 1806. 

The Bible and Science. 

I HAVE been blamed by men of science, 
both in this country and in England, for 
quoting the Bible in confirmation of the doc- 
trines of physical geography. The Bible, 
they say, was not written for scientific pur- 
poses, and is therefore of no authority. I beg 
pardon : the Bible is authority for every thing 
it touches. What would you think of the 
historian who should refuse to consult the 
historical records of the Bible, because the 
Bible was not written for the purpose of his- 
tory ? The Bible is true, and science is true ; 
and when your man of science, with vain and 



k 



86 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

hasty conceit, announces the discovery of a 
disagreement between them, rely upon it, the 
fault is not with the witness or his records, 
but with the '^ worm " who essays to interpret 
evidence which he does not understand. 

When T, a pioneer in one department of this 
beautiful science, discover the truths of rev- 
elation and the truths of science reflecting 
light one upon the other, and each sustaining 
the other, how can I, as a truth-loving, knowl- 
edge-seeking man, fail to point out the beauty, 
and rejoice in the discovery ? And were I to 
suppress the emotions with which such dis- 
coveries ought to stir the soul, the waves of 
the sea would lift up their voice, and the very 
stones of the earth cry out against me. 

XVI. 

By Benjamin Silliman, M.D., LL.D., late 
Professor in Yale College. — 1 779-1864. 

The Bible not contradicted by Science. 

THE relation of geology, as well as 
astronomy, to the Bible, when both are 
well understood, is that of perfect harmony. 
The Bible nowhere limits the age of our 



APOLOGETIC AND EVIDENTIAL. 87 

globe, while its chronology assigns a recent 
origin to the human race ; and geology not 
only confirms the truth of the history of man, 
but it affords decisive evidence that the Gen- 
esis presents a true statement of the progress 
of the terrestrial arrangements, and of the 
introduction of living beings in the order in 
which their fossil remains are found entombed 
in the strata. The Word and the works of God 
cannot be in conflict ; and, the more they are 
studied, the more perfect will their harmony 
appear. 



XVII. 

By Archbishop Richard Whately, D.D. — 
Born 1789. 

That there are Difficulties in the Bible, Reasonable. 

rr^HAT there are difficulties in many parts 
-L of Scripture, and that there is conse- 
quent danger of mischievous perversion, is 
undeniable, and is, indeed, what analogy would 
prepare us to expect ; for if the Scriptures 
could be properly understood without any 
trouble, and were incapable of perversion to 



88 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

bad purposes, they would be extremely unlike 
the rest of God's gifts. But the diflSculties 
of Scripture, as well as the danger of misin- 
terpreting it, are evidently an additional 
reason for diligence in the study of it. 



XVIII. 

By Joseph Butler, Bishop of Durham. — 
1692-1752. 

On the Difficulties in the Scriptures. 

ORIGEN has observed, with singular 
sagacity, that he who believes the Scrip- 
ture to have proceeded from Him who is the 
author of nature, may well expect to find the 
same sort of difficulties in it as are found in 
the constitution of nature ; and, in a like way 
of reflection, it may be added, that he who 
denies the Scripture to have been from God 
upon account of these difficulties, may, for the 
very same reason, deny the world to have been 
from Him. 

Christianity being supposed either true or 
credible, it is unspeakable irreverence, and 



APOLOGETIC AND EVIDENTIAL. 89 

really the most presumptuous rashness, to 
treat it as a light matter. It can never justly 
be esteemed of little consequence till it be 
positively supposed false. Nor do I know a 
higher or more important obligation which we 
are under than that of examining most seri- 
ously into the evidence of it, supposing its 
credibility, and of embracing it upon supposi- 
tion of its truth: 



XIX. 
By Prof. F. A. G. Tholuck.— Born 1799. 

T/^e Chief Groimd of Difficulty iit comprehending the 
Scriptures. 

THE reason why we find so many dark 
places in the Bible is, for the most part, 
because there are so many dark places in our 
hearts. It belongs to the nature of this Book, 
that it was written for all men of every time, 
and for all the experiences of each single 
human heart. 



90 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

XX. 

By Thomas Fuller, D.D. — 1608-1661. 

An Aptness to understand the Scriptures gradually 
acgtiired. 

LORD, this morning I read a chapter in 
the Bible, and therein observed a mem- 
orable passage, whereof I never took notice 
before. Why now, and no sooner, did I see 
it? Formerly my eyes were as open, and the 
letters as legible. Is there not a thin veil laid 
over Thy word, which is more rarefied by 
reading, and at last wholly worn away ? Or 
was it because I came with more appetite than 
before ? The milk was always there in the 
breast ; but the child till now was not hungry 
enough to find out the teat. I see the oil of 
Thy word will never cease increasing whilst 
any bring an empty barrel. The Old Testa- 
ment will still be a New Testament to him 
who comes with a fresh desire of information. 

Within that awful volume lies 
The mystery of mysteries. 
Happiest they, of human race, 
To whom our God has granted grace 
To read, to fear, to hope, to pray, 
To lift the latch, and force the way ; 
And better had they ne'er been born 
Who read to doubt, or read to scorn. 

Sir Walter Scott. 



t APOLOGETIC AND EVIDENTIAL. 91 

XXI. 
Rev. John Owen, D.D., — 1616-1683. 
The Self-evide7iciiig Powers of the Bible, 
HERE are two things to be considered 
in the doctrine of Scripture, which to me 
seem not only to persuade, but to convince, 
the understanding of unprejudiced men of its 
divine original. Its universal suitableness, 
upon its first clear discovery, to all the entan- 
glements and perplexities of the souls of men, 
in reference to their relation to and depend- 
ence on God. Now, there are three things 
that all of mankind, not naturally brutish, are 
perplexed with in relation to God : how they 
may worship Him as they ought ; how they 
may be reconciled and at peace with Him, 
or have an atonement for that guilt of which 
they are naturally sensible ; what is the 
nature of true blessedness, and how they 
may attain to it. 

Another consideration of like efficacy may 
be taken from a brief view of the whole 
Scripture, with the design of it. The con- 
sent of parts, or harmony of Scripture with 
itself, and every part of it with each other 
and with the whole, is commonly pleaded as 



92 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

an evidence of its divine original. Thus 
mucli certainly it doth evince, beyond all 
possible contradiction, — that the whole pro- 
ceedeth from one and the same principle, 
hath the same author, and He wise, discern- 
ing, able to comprehend the whole compass 
of what He intended to deliver and reveal. 
Otherwise, that oneness of spirit, design, and 
aim, in unspeakable diversity of means of its 
delivery, that absolute correspondency of it 
to itself and unlikeness to any thing else, 
could not have been attained. 



XXII. 

By Hugo Grotius. — 1583-1645. 
The Books of the Old Testament Genuine. 

BUT there is no need for us Christians to 
doubt the credibility of these books, 
because there are testimonies in our books, 
out of almost every one of them, the same 
as they are found in Hebrew. Nor did 
Christ, when he reproved many things in the 
teachers of the Law, and in the Pharisees of 
His time, ever accuse them of falsifying the 
books of Moses and the Prophets, or of using 
supposititious or altered books. 



I 



APOLOGETIC AND EVIDENTIAL. 93 

And it can never be proved, or made 
credible, that after Christ's time the Scrip- 
ture should be corrupted in any thing of 
moment, if we do but consider how far and 
wide the Jewish nation, which everywhere 
kept these books, was dispersed over the 
whole world. 

XXIII. 

By Joseph Addison. — 1672-1719. 

The yezus, as a People, uncottsciously Witness to the 
Divinity of the Bible. 

rr^HE firm adherence of the Jews to their 
-L religion is no less remarkable than 
their numbers and dispersion. If we con- 
sider what providential reason may be 
assigned for these three particulars, we shall 
find that their numbers, dispersion, and 
adherence to their religion, have furnished 
every age, and every nation of the world, 
with the strongest arguments for the Chris- 
tian faith, not only as these very particulars 
are foretold of them, but as they themselves 
are the depositaries of these and all other 
prophecies which tend to their confusion. 



94 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

Their number furnishes us with a sufficient 
cloud of witnesses, that attest the truth of 
the Old Bible. Their dispersion spreads 
these witnesses through all parts of the 
world. The adherence to their religion 
makes their testimony unquestionable. Had 
the whole body of Jews been converted to 
Christianity, we should certainly have thought 
all the prophecies of the Old Testament, that 
relate to the coming and history ' of our 
blessed Saviour, forged by Christians, and 
have looked upon them, with the prophecies 
of the Sibyls, as made many years after the 
events they pretend to foretell. 



XXIV. 

By John Jewel, Bishop. — 1 522-1 574. 
Wonderful Preservation of the Bible. 

CITIES fall, kingdoms come to nothing, 
empires fade away as smoke. Where is 
Numa, Minos, Lycurgus? Where are their 
books? and what is become of their laws? 
But that this Book no tyrant should have 
been able to consume, no tradition to choke. 



APOLOGETIC AND EVIDENTIAL. 95 

no heretic maliciously to corrupt; that it 
should stand unto this day, amid the wreck 
of all that is human, without the alteration of 
one sentence so as to change the doctrine 
taught therein, — surely there is a very sin- 
gular providence, claiming our attention in a 
most remarkable manner. 



XXV. 

By Napoleon Bonaparte. — 1 769-1 821. 

Paganism contrasted with Christianity and with the 
Christian Scriptures. 

PAGANISM is the work of man. One can 
here read imbecility. What do these 
gods, so boastful, know more than other mor- 
tals ; these legislators, Greek or Roman ; this 
Numa, this Lycurgus ; these priests of India, 
or of Memphis ; this Confucius ; this Moham- 
med ? — absolutely nothing. They have made 
a perfect chaos of morals. There is not one 
among them all who has said any thing new 
in reference to our future destiny, to the soul, 
to tlie essence of God, to the creation. Enter 
the sanctuaries of paganism, you there find 



96 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

perfect chaos, a thousand contradictions, war 
between the gods, impurity and abomination 
adored, all sorts of corruption festering in the 
thick shades, with the rotten wood, the idol, 
and the priest. Does this honor God, or does 
it dishonor Him ? Are these religions and 
these gods to be compared with Christianity? 

Truth should embrace the universe. Such 
is Christianity, — the only religion which 
destroys sectional prejudices ; the only one 
which proclaims the unity and the absolute 
brotherhood of the whole human family ; the 
only one which is purely spiritual ; in fine, 
the only one which assigns to all, without 
distinction, for a true country, the bosom of 
the Creator, God. Christ proved that He was 
the Son of the Eternal by His disregard of 
time. All His doctrines signify only and 
the same thing, — eternity. 

The gospel is more than a book : it is a liv- 
ing being, with an action, a power, which 
invades every thing that opposes its exten- 
sion. Behold ! it is upon this table, — this 
book [the Bible] surpassing all others : I never 
omit to read it, and every day with new 
pleasure. 

Nowhere is to be found such a series of 



I 



APOLOGETIC AND EVIDENTIAL. 97 

beautiful ideas, — admirable moral maxims, 
which pass before us like the battalions of a 
celestial army, and which produce in our soul 
the same emotions which one experiences in 
contemplating the infinite expanse of the 
skies, resplendent in a summer's night with 
all the brilliance of the stars. Not only is 
our mind absorbed ; it is controlled : and the 
soul can never go astray with this book for 
its guide. 



XXVI. 

By Rev. Gardiner Spring, D.D. — Born 1785. 
The Religion of the Bible. 

GOD is light. So is the religion of the Bible. 
It has no fellowship with darkness. Not 
one of its graces springs from stupidity or igno- 
rance, but all of them from the knowledge of 
God. False religions are founded in dark- 
ness. The religion of the Bible, like its 
Author, dwells in light. God also is love ; 
and so is the religion of the Bible. " He that 
dwelleth in love, dw^elleth in God, and God in 
him." 

7 



98 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

XXYII. 

By Rev. J. A. Macduff. 

The Bible the Book of Books. 

AH, Philosophy ! thou hast never yet, as 
this book, taught a man how to die. 
Reason I with thy flickering torch, thou hast 
never yet guided to such subhme mysteries, 
such comforting truths as these. Science! 
thou hast penetrated the arcana of nature, 
sunk thy shafts into the earth's recesses, un- 
buried its stores, counted its strata, measured 
the height of its massive pillars, down to the 
very pedestals of primeval granite. Thou 
hast tracked the lightning, traced the path of 
the tornado, uncurtained the distant planet, 
foretold the coming of the comet, and the 
return of the eclipse. But thou hast never 
been able to gauge the depth of man's soul, 
or to answer the question, " What must I do 
to be saved?" 

No, no ! this antiquated volume is still the 
" Book of books," the oracle of oracles, the 
beacon of beacons, the poor man's treasury, 
the child's companion, the sick man's health, 
the dying man's life ; shallows for the infant 



APOLOGETIC AND EVIDENTIAL. 99 

to walk in, depths for giant intellect to 
explore and adore ! Philosophy, if she would 
own it, is indebted here for the noblest of her 
maxims ; Poetry for the loftiest of her 
themes. Painting has gathered here her 
noblest inspirations. Music has ransacked 
these golden stores for the grandest of her 
strains. 

XXVIII. 

By James Beattie. — 1735-1803. 

The Gospel sublimely and be7iignantly Pure and 
Rational. 

THERE is not a book on earth so favor- 
able to all the kind and the sublime 
affections, or so unfriendly to hatred and per- 
secution, to tyranny, injustice, and every sort 
of malevolence, as is the gospel. It breathes 
throughout mercy, benevolence, and peace. 

Such of the doctrines of the gospel as are 
level to human capacity appear to be agreea- 
ble to the purest truth and soundest morality. 
All the genius and learning of the heathen 
world, all the penetration of Pythagoras, 
Socrates, and Aristotle, had never been able 



100 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

to produce such a system of moral duty, and 
so rational an account of Providence and of 
man, as is to be found in the New Testament. 



XXIX. 

By Francis Wayland, D.D. 

The Divinity of the Scriptures evinced by their 
hijiuences. 

THAT the truths of the Bible have the 
power of awakening an intense moral 
feeling in man under every variety of charac- 
ter, learned or ignorant, civilized or savage ; 
that they make bad men good, and send a 
pulse of healthful feeling through all the 
domestic, civil, and social relations ; that they 
teach men to love right, and hate wrong, and 
to seek each other's welfare, as the children 
of one common Parent ; that they control the 
baleful passions of the human heart, and thus 
make men proficient in the science of self- 
government ; and, finally, that they teach him 
to conspire after a conformity to a Being of 
infinite holiness, and fill him with hopes infi- 
nitely more purifying, more exalted, more 
suited to his nature, than any other which 



APOLOGETIC AND EVIDENTIAL. 101 

this world has ever known, are facts as incon- 
trovertible as the laws of philosophy, or the 
demonstrations of mathematics. 

XXX. 

By EusEBius, Bishop of Caesarea. — 264-340. 
The same. 

IF you desire any other proofs of the excel- 
lence of the truth, showing that it is not 
of mortal nature, but is really the Word of 
God, and that power of Grod in the Saviour 
has been revealed, not by words only, but by 
deeds, attend now. What king, philosopher, 
lawgiver, or prophet, ever effected so much, 
that he should be preached throughout the 
whole earth ; and who bade his disciples go 
and testify for him, and suffer for his sake, 
and with the word brought the deed to pass ? 
What prince, what armies, ever, in spite of 
the constant opposition of all, went and pros- 
pered every where. Who ever before had a 
people after his own name, not in a corner 
of the world, but among all, barbarians and 
Greeks alike ; and, by the doctrines which 
be taught (being confirmed by deeds), turned 
men, yea, even the Egyptians, from idolatry ? 



102 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

XXXI. 

By J. W. V. Goethe. — 1749- i^32- 

The Scriptures a World-vanquishing Power : their 
Writers heroically True. 

THE mighty power of these books, and 
their accounts, have been tested and 
proved. They have overcome paganism ; 
they have conquered Greece, Rome, and bar- 
barous Europe ; they are on the way of con- 
quering the world. And the sincerity of the 
authors is no less certain than the power of 
the books. We may contest the learning and 
critical sagacity of the first historians of Jesus 
Christ ; but it is impossible to contest their 
good faith : it shines from their words ; they 
believed what they said ; they sealed their 
assertions with their blood. 

" Whence, but from heaven, could men unskilled in arts, 

In several ages born, in several parts, 

Weave such agreeing truths ? or how, or why, 

Should all conspire to cheat us with a lie ? 

Unasked their pains, ungrateful their advice. 

Starving their gain, and martyrdom their price." 

Dryden. 



PART THIRD. 



HOMAGE 

OF 

EMINENT PERSONS 

TO 

The Book 

AS A SCHOOL-BOOK. 



■ The Child is Father of the Man." 



''From a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, 

which are able to make thee wise unto salvation 

through faith in Christ Jesiis:' 




PART III. 



HOMAGE TO THE BOOK AS A SCHOOL-BOOK. 



^' The Child is Father of the Man.' 



A REASON RENDERED. 

AS this little volume is designed espe- 
cially for those who must soon wield 
the destinies of the Republic, it has been 
deemed proper to unite the following testi- 
monies, showing the value of the Bible as a 
school-book, with the foregoing compilations. 
Our nation has just entered on a new era 
of its history. Its past prosperity is clearly 
traceable to the reverence of its founders, 
and of our fathers, for the Holy Scriptures. 
Had there been a growth of veneration 
for the principles which they teach, and for 
the sacredness of a civil oath, equal to that of 
our population, our soil would not of late have 

105 



106 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK 

been saturated with the blood of so many 
thousands of brave brothers and sons ; and, if 
the future of the Republic is to be truly 
honorable and happy, the children and youth, 
while in a course of training, must become 
reverently familiar with the teachings of the 
Bible ! What influence it shall have in our 
popular education our young men must decide. 
This is a matter challenging earnest and 
sober thought. The profound convictions 
and the mature decisions of men whose 
uprightness, sagacity, and experience emi- 
nently fitted them to judge, are here recorded. 
To evade this question is to be reckless of 
the public weal. To neglect the Bible is dis- 
loyalty to God, to the welfare of mankind 
and of our National Government, whose 
preservation has cost untold sufferings, and 
rivers of blood. 

It is not claimed that theology shall be 
taught in our public schools. Theology is 
man-made, but the Bible is God-given. 
Though suns and stars shone for ages before 
there was a true astronomy, before men found 
out the laws and periods of their motions, 
who ever denied or doubted the beauty and 
benefits of their light ? As the genial beams 



AS A SCHOOL-BOOK. 107 

of the sun quicken and cherish every form of 
vegetable and animal life, while they both 
beget and reveal beauty ; so the Bible is the 
sun of the moral world, banishing the dark- 
ness of ignorance and sin from the mind and 
heart, and kindling a new, holy, and happy 
life in all who lovingly heed its teachings. 
Educate without the Bible ! Keep from 
the minds of the young the great truths of 
immortality ! Bound their vision to things 
perishable, deprive them of the best spurs to 
goodness, and let them be familiar only with 
the cold verities of natural science, with the 
forms and figures of speech, and with the 
grovelling range of worldly ideas ! More 
wisely may we believe that the pale moon- 
beams alone can clothe our gardens with fra- 
grant and beautiful blossoms, and our fields 
with a rich fruitage of ripened corn, than 
look for symmetry, loveliness, and force of 
character, to a process of training not cheered 
and energized by the light which shines from 
the Sacred Oracles. 



108 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK 



By Dr. Martin Luther, the Reformer. — 

I483-I546. 

The Bible should be Foremost. 

ABOYE all things, let the Scriptures be 
the chief and most frequently used 
reading-book, both in primary and in high 
schools. Is it not proper and right that every 
human being, by the time he has reached his 
tenth year, should be familiar with the Holy 
Gospels, in which the very core and marrow 
of his life is bound ? But where the Scrip- 
tures do not bear sway, there I would counsel 
none to send his child ; for every institution 
will degenerate where God's word is not in 
daily exercise. 



II. 

By John Locke, the Mental Philosopher. — 

1 63 2- 1 704. 
The Plainest Parts of the Bible to be read First. 

"YTT^HHT an odd jumble of thoughts must 

V V a child have in his head, if he have 

any at all, such as he should have concerning 

rehgion, who, in his tender age, reads all the 



AS A SCHOOL-BOOK. 109 

parts of the Bible indiflferently, as the Word 
of God, without any distinction ! I am apt 
to think that this, in some men, has been the 
very reason why they never had clear and 
distinct thoughts of it all their lifetime. 

The reading of the whole Scriptures indif- 
ferently is what I think very inconvenient for 
children, till, after having been made ac- 
quainted with the plainest fundamental parts 
of it, they have got some kind of general view 
of what they ought principally to believe and 
practise, which yet, I think (they ought to 
receive in the very words of the Scripture), 
and not in such as men, prepossessed by sys- 
tems and analogies, are apt in this case to 
make use of, and force upon them. 

" Great God ! with wonder and with praise 

On all thy works I look ; 
But still thy wisdom, power, and grace 

Shine brightest in thy Book. 
Here are my choicest treasures hid ; 

Here my best comfort lies ; 
Here my desires are satisfied. 

And hence my hopes arise." 

Watts. 



110 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK 

III. 

By Benjamin Rush, M.D. — 1745-1813. 

THAT eminent man began a treatise, ur- 
ging the use of the Bible in schools, with 
the following assumptions : — 

1. That Christianity is the only true and 
perfect religion; and that, in proportion as 
mankind adopt its principles and obey its 
precepts, they will be wise and happy. 

2. That a better knowledge of this religion 
is to be acquired by reading the Bible than in 
any other way. 

3. That the Bible contains more knowledge 
necessary to man in his present state than 
any other book. 

4. That knowledge is most durable, and 
religious instruction most useful, when im- 
parted in early life. 

5. That the Bible, when not read in schools, 
is seldom read in any subsequent period of life. 

My arguments in favor of the use of the 
Bible as a school-book are founded, first in 
the constitution of the human mind, 

1. The memory is the first faculty which 



AS A SCHOOL-BOOK. Ill 

opens ill the minds of children. Of how- 
much consequence, then, must it be to impress 
it with the great truths of Christianity before 
it is pre-occupied with less interesting sub- 
jects ! 

2. There is a peculiar aptitude in the 
minds of children for religious knowledge. 
I have constantly found them, in the first six 
or seven years of their lives, more inquisitive 
upon religious subjects than upon any others ; 
and an ingenious instructor of youth has in- 
formed me, that he has found young children 
more capable of receiving just ideas upon the 
most difficult tenets of religion, than upon 
the most simple branches of human knowledge. 
It would be strange if it were otherwise ; for 
God creates all his means to suit his ends. 
There must, of course, be a fitness between 
the human mind and the truths which are 
essential to its happiness. 

3. We are subject, by a general law of our 
natures, to what is called habit. Now, if the 
study of the Scriptures be necessary to our 
happiness at any time of our lives, the sooner 
we begin to read them, the more we shall be 
attached to them ; for it is a characteristic of 



112 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK 

all habits to become easy, strong, and agreea- 
ble by repetition. 

4 There is a wonderful property in the 
memory, which enables it, in old age, to re- 
cover the knowledge it had acquired in early 
life, after it had been apparently forgotten for 
forty or fifty years. Of how much conse- 
quence, tljen, must it be to fill the mind with 
that species of knowledge in childhood and 
youth, which, when recalled in the decline of 
life, will support the soul under the infirmities 
of age, and approaching death ! The Bible is 
the only book which is capable of affording 
this support in old age ; and it is for this rea- 
son that we find it resorted to with so much 
diligence and pleasure by such old people as 
have read it in early life. * 

My second argument in favor of the use of 
the Bible in schools is founded on an im- 
plied command of God, and upon the prac- 
tice of several of the wisest nations of the 
world. 

In the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy, we 
find the following words, which are directly to 
our purpose : " And thou shalt love the Lord 



AS A SCHOOL-BOOK. 113 

thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy 
soul, and with all thy might. And these 
words, which I command thee this day, shall 
be in thy heart; and thou shalt teach them 
diligently to thy children, and shalt talk of 
them when thou sittest down, and when thou 
risest up." 

It appears, moreover, from the history of 
the Jews, that they flourished as a nation in 
proportion as they honored and read the books 
of Moses, which contained the only revelation 
that God had made to the world. The law 
was not only neglected, but lost, during the 
general profligacy of manners which accom- 
panied the long and wicked reign of Manasseh ; 
but the discovery of it, amid the rubbish of 
the temple, by Josiah, and its subsequent 
general use, were followed by a return of 
national virtue and prosperity. We read fur- 
ther of the wonderful eff'ects which the read- 
ing of the law by Ezra, after his return from 
his captivity in Babylon, had upon the Jews. 
They hung upon his lips with tears, and 
showed the sincerity of their repentance by 
their general reformation. 

But the benefits of an early and general 



114 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK 

acquaintance with the Bible were not confined 
to the Jewish nation. They have appeared 
in many countries in Europe since the Refor- 
mation. The industry, and habits of order, 
which distinguished many of the German 
nations are derived from their early instruc- 
tion in the principles of Christianity by means 
of the Bible. In Scotland, and in parts of 
New England where the Bible has been long 
used as a school-book, the inhabitants are 
among the most enlightened in religion and 
science, the most strict in morals, and the 
most enterprising and efficient in human 
affairs, of any people whose history has come 
to my knowledge. 

I wish to be excused for repeating here, 
that, if the Bible did not convey a single 
direction for the attainment of future happi- 
ness, it should be read in our schools in pref- 
erence to all other books j from its containing 
the greatest portion of that kind of knowl- 
edge which is calculated to produce private 
and public temporal happiness. 

1 know there is an objection among many 
people to teaching children doctrines of any 
kind, because they are liable to be contro- 



AS A SCHOOL-BOOK. 115 

verted ; but let us not be wiser than our Maker. 
If moral precepts alone could have reformed 
mankind, the mission of the Son of God into 
our world would have been unnecessary. 
The perfect morality of the gospel rests upon 
a doctrine, wliich, though often controverted, 
lias never been refuted : I mean the vicarious 
life and death of the Son of God. This sub- 
lime and ineffable doctrine delivers us from 
the absurd hj^potheses of modern philosophers 
concerning the foundation of moral obhgation, 
and fixes it upon the eternal and selfmoving 
principle of Love. It concentrates a whole 
system of ethics in a single text of Scripture, 
— "A new commandment I give unto you, 
that ye love one another, even as I have loved 
you." 

In contemplating the political institutions 
of the United States, I lament that we waste 
so much time and money in punishing crimes, 
and take so little pains to prevent them. We 
profess to be republicans, and yet we neglect 
the only means of estabhshing and perpetu- 
ating our republican forms of government ; 
that is, the universal education of our youth 
in the principles of Christianity by means of 



116 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK 

the Bible: for this divine book, above all 
others, favors that equality among mankind, 
that respect for just laws, and all those sober 
and frugal' virtues which constitute the soul 
of republicanism. 

" I saw once more that aspect bright, — 

The boy's meek head was bowed 
In silence o'er the Book of li^ht : 

And like a golden cloud, 
The still cloud of a pictured sky, 
His locks drooped round it lovingly. 

And if my heart had deemed him fair 

When in the fountain glade, 
A creature of the sky and air, 

Almost on wings he played, 
Oh, how much holier beauty now 
Lit the young human being's brow ! — 

The being born to toil, to die, 

To break forth from the tomb 
Unto far nobler destiny 

Than waits the skylark's plume. 
I saw him, in the thoughtful hour, 
Win the first knowledge of his dower." 

Mrs. Hemans. 



AS A SCHOOL-BOOK. 117 



IV. 



By Joseph Story, LL.D. — 1 779-1 845. 

Restraints on Liberty of Speech and on Liberty of 
Reading the Bible, 

IT is notorious that even to this day, in 
some foreign countries, it is a crime to 
speak on any subject, religious, philosophi- 
cal, or political, what is contrary to the 
received opinions of the government or the 
institutions of the country, however laudable 
may be the design, and however virtuous 
may be the motive. . . . The Bible itself, the 
common inheritance, not merely of Christen- 
dom, but of the world, has been put exclu- 
sively under the control of government, and 
has not been allowed to be seen or heard or 
read, except in a language unknown to the 
common inhabitants of the country. To pub- 
lish a translation in the vernacular tongue 
has been in former times a flagrant offence. 



118 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK 

V. 

By Victor Cousin, the French Philosopher. 
1792. 

From his Report concerning Public Instruction in Ger- 
7nany. 

THE general system of instruction is 
grounded on the Bible as translated by 
Luther, the catechism, and Scripture his 
tory : and every wise man will rejoice in 
this ; for, with three-fourths of the population, 
morality can be instilled only through the 
medium of rehgion. Luther's forcible and 
popular translation of the Bible is in circula- 
tion from one end of Protestant Germany to 
the other, and has greatly aided in the moral 
and rehgious education of the people. 

VI. 

By George Christian Knapp, D.D., Profes- 
sor of Theology in the University of Halle. 
— 1753-1825. 

How to exterminate Christianity. 

nnHE most direct way to render Chris- 

-J- tianity obsolete is to take the Bible from 

the hands of the common people. And 

already have we begun to experience the 



AS A SCHOOL-BOOK. 119 

evils resultiog from the efforts of some mod- 
ern teachers to banish the reading of the 
Scriptures, especially of the Old Testament, 
from our scJiools, or at least diminish the 
degree of attention formerly paid to them. 



VII. 



By Sir Robert Peel. — 1 788-1 850. 

Sectarian Prejudice must 7iot exclude Religious In- 
structions fro7n Schools. 

{From a Speech delivered 1827.) 

THERE is a great movement of the pub- 
lic mind relative to public education. 
All parties, of whatever creed or religious 
denomination, are beginning to be convinced 
that there has been, upon the part of all of us, 
a great deficiency in that respect. We have 
permitted our religious differences to operate 
against education; and it has now become 
necessary that that great object of national 
education shall be obtained by a sacrifice, on 
the part of all of us, of some of those scruples 
which have hitherto prevented it. 



120 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK 

VIII. 

By Rev. George B. Cheever, D.D, 
The Bible not Sectarian. 
n^^HE Bible is older than any sect in the 
-^ world. The Bible is the only Catholi- 
city, the only form in which religion can be 
taught without a sectarian rehgious bias; 
and that is a great and mighty reason why it 
should be taught, or enter in some wav as an 
acknowledged divine element into our public- 
school system. Our English translation, 
which the learned Selden called the ^^ best 
version in the world,- is not a Protestant 
translation, nor a Protestant Bible ; but it is 
simply the people's Bible, the word of God 
lu English, for those who speak the English 
tongue. If no Bible but the original Greek 
and Hebrew were the word of .God, then 
none but Greeks and Hebrews have the word 
of God. This stigmatizing of our English 
translation as the Protestant version is a poor 
trick, resorted to in order to banish the word 
of God from our schools. The word of God 
m English is no more the Protestant Bible or 
the Protestant version, than the science of 
Algebra in English is Protestant algebra, or 



AS A SCHOOL-BOOK. 121 

of astronomy the Protestant astronomy ; no 
more than the stars in America are Protestant 
stars, or the sun a Protestant sun. Both the 
works of God and the word of God are God's 
truth. 

IX. 

By Rev. J. H. Seelye, in the BibHotheca 
Sacra. 

The Bible the Source and Security of our Institutiotts. 

NOW, as already indicated, the religion of 
this country is that of the Bible. No one 
can properly dispute this. No matter whether 
the Bible be true or false : it is the exponent 
of our religion, and is the book containing 
the principles which have moulded all our 
civil institutions. It is that which gives 
character and force and stability to our gov- 
ernment and laws. You might as well take 
out the heart from the body, and suppose that 
it would be a living body still, as to take 
away the Bible and all its influences from our 
institutions, and expect that these will be 
preserved from decay. He that does not see, 
and will not acknowledge the power of the 
Bible in building up the whole framework of 
American institutions, is either unwise or in- 
sincere. 



122 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK 



X. 



By Lord Brougham. — Born 1 788-1 868. 

From a Speech in the House of Lords, December, 
1837. 

rpHAT there should be no exclusion of 
J- religious instruction, but that, on the 
contrary, there should be a direct recognition 
of it, is my very decided opinion. I certainly 
am one of those who think that the bill 
should contain, in positive and express terms, 
a provision, that in all schools founded, ex- 
tended, or improved, under this bill, the 
Scriptures shall be read. When I say that 
the Scriptures are one of the books which 
should be read in the schools, I, of course, 
mean that it should not be the only book read 
there: far from it; God forbid!— for the 
sake of religion and the Bible itself, God for- 
bid ! — but that, as a part of the reading in 
such schools, the Holy Scriptures should be 
used, with a proviso, of course, that any chil- 
dren of Jewish or Roman-Catholic parents 
attending such schools shall not be required 
to be present when the authorized version is 
read, unless the parent shall desire it. 



AS A SCHOOL-BOOK. 123 



XI. 



From The Princeton Review. 

On Excluding the Religion of the Bible from Schools. 

THE separation of religion from secular 
education is not only impracticable, it is 
positively evil. The choice is not between 
religion and no religion, but between religion 
and irreligion, between Christianity and infi- 
delity. The mere negative of Theism is 
\theism. The absence of knowledge and 
fuith in Christianity is infidelity. Even Byron 
had soul enough to make Lucifer say, — 

" He that bows not to God hath bowed to me." 

As in a field, if you do not sow grain you 
will have weeds; so in the human mind, if you 
do not sow truth, you will have error. The 
attempt, therefore, to exclude religion from 
our common schools is an attempt to bring 
up in infidelity and atheism all that part of 
our population who depend on these schools 
for their education. 



124 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK 

XII. 

By Hon. Daniel Webster. 

On withholding Christian Instruction from the 
Young till they can judge for themselves. 

TT is vain to talk about the destructive ten- 
-L dency of such a system : to argue upon it 
is to insult the understanding of every man ; 
it is mere, sheer, low, ribald, vulgar deism and 
infidelity. It opposes all tbat is in heaven, 
and all that is on earth that is wortli being on 
earth. It destroys the connecting link be^ 
tween the creature and the Creator; it 
opposes that great system of universal benev- 
olence and goodness that binds man to his 
Maker. 

XIII. 

By Karl Von Raumer (Germany). 
The Bible Intelligible to Children. 

T should not be said that the children do 
not understand the Bible. The child has 
one understanding, and the man another, just 
as the artist has one very different from that 
of the learned commentator ; and still Pales- 
trina and Handel understood the fifty-third 
chapter of Isaiah better than Gesenius. 



I 



AS A SCHOOL-BOOK. 125 

Poetic power should not be weakened by 
prosaic exposition. The whole modern phase 
of pedagogy has, among other characteristics, 
that of not merely neglecting, but by evil 
arts of destroying, the most active faculty of 
youth, — a sensitive imagination. This crea- 
tive power of unreflecting simplicity, and the 
religious blessing which springs from that 
simplicity, are unknown to the dry peda- 
gogues, who, by means of an intelligent tor- 
ture of the understanding, which anticipates 
the period of mental maturity, would screw 
up the child to their much-praised '^ conscious- 
ness," and to the comprehension of every 
thing in general and in particular. 

XIY. 

By Hon. John Cotton Smith, formerly 
President of the American Bible Society. 

On " Religious Instruction in our Public Schools^ 

'TTT'E must restore the Bible to the schools. 
V V Who can tell how much of the delin- 
quency which stains our judicial records may 
be attributed to ignorance of its divine pre- 
cepts and sanctions ? Who can estimate the 



126 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK 

number of thoughtless parents, — a number 
fearfully increased by the exclusion already 
mentioned, — who neglect or refuse to impress 
upon their children the duty of attentively 
reading the Bible ? Establish it as an exercise 
in the common schools, and you make every 
child and youth in the Republic acquainted, 
of course, with a book, which, of all others, it 
behoves them to know, — a book whose divine 
origin, if there were no other proof, is demon- 
strated by its perfect adaption to every capa- 
city, the humblest and the highest, to the 
condition of man through every stage and 
vicissitude of his earthly existence, as well as 
to his immortal destiny. Who can withhold 
such a book from the children of our country, 
and be blameless ? 

" Oh ! come, let us walk in the light of the Lord, 
As it beams from the page of His life-giving Word : 
'Tis a lamp to our feet ; and we go not astray 
While we follow the path that's illumed by its ray, — 
That path by the prophets and patriarchs trod, 
Still bright with the steps of the chosen of God.'* 

W. H. BUBLEIGH. 



AS A SCHOOL-BOOK. 127 

XV. 

By Hon. Thomas S. Grimke. — 1 786-1 834. 

The Study of the Bible Essential to a Good Education. 

BUT has not the time come when a change 
may be advantageously and properly 
made ? Is it credible that no change ever 
will be made, — that the Bible never will be an 
inseparable part of education, from the earli- 
est and the lowest, to the latest and the high- 
est ? For myself, I have no doubt as to the 
answer to be given ; and believing as I do, 
that one of the first duties of the Reformation 
was to have incorporated the Bible into the 
whole course of instruction, I trust that the 
time is not far distant when this principle 
will be universally acknowledged and acted 
on, " tliat the Bible is the only good basis, and 
the only safe^ enduring cement^ of education.^'' 



128 HOMAGE TO THE BOOK. 

XVI. 

By Rev. James W. Alexander, D.D. — 
1 804-1 859. 

The Bible the Best Educator. 

HOLD up the great truth, that the Bible 
is the book to educate the age. Why 
not have it the chief thing in the family, in 
the school, in the academy, in the university ? 
This day is coming; and, if you and I can intro- 
duce the minutest corner of the wedge, we 
shall be benefactors of our race. I can please 
and interest a child from the Bible. I can 
teach logic, ethics, rhetoric, and salvation 
from the Bible. May we not have a Bible- 
school ? Sow the seed of the Word meekly, 
prayerfully: it must grow. The Bible, the 
Bible ! it is this that must save America. 

" How precious is the book divine, 

By inspiration given ! 
Bright as a lamp its doctrines shine, 

To guide our souls to heaven. 
This lamp through all the tedious night 

Of life shall guide our way, 
Till we behold the clearer light 

Of an eternal day." 

Rev. John Fa WCETT.— 1739-1817. 



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